Fullmetal Alchemist (2017) Survival Lesson

Survival Lesson: Never reveal your weakness to anyone, especially an enemy. For example, if you are otherwise immortal, don't let your enemy know that your power comes from you having a philosopher's stone for a heart, which when ripped out will kill you.

Synopsis: Two brothers, who combined have three-quarters of a body, search for a philosopher's stone in hopes that it will help them get some of their body parts back.

Rating: 3/10. I have heard this name before, but knew nothing about it. Fans of the Manga will likely have a very different opinion of this movie. I didn't like it. While it is a good story, it was told very poorly. It gets some points because the overall production values were pretty good, with great costumes, decent locations, and nice effects.

There are two main problems with the movie. First, the acting was poor and I really didn't feel like there was any chemistry at all between any of the characters. At one point a friend of the main character dies and he is apparently upset, which was confusing to me, because until that point it didn't seem like he liked the dude at all.

The bigger problem is that the 'movie' seems like it was lifted directly off the pages of a comic, but comics and movies are completely different mediums for storytelling. It lacked fluid continuity and pacing and felt more like scanning frames and flipping pages of a comic book, and something like a 3-frame conversation that in a comic would take 10 seconds, became a several minute scene in the movie. Overall, it was cloddy, slow and dull. Even the combat scenes somehow were boring. It was like everyone was kind of frozen in them (like they would be in a drawing), just standing around doing nothing.