Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos

Dairy farming isn't something that one would normally associate with anime and manga, especially as there's nothing really entertaining about looking after or milking cows. There is, however, a rather improbable connection between these seemingly disparate industries, and nowhere is this more apparent than when dealing with popular franchises - like Full Metal Alchemist.

With a successful manga, two anime adaptations, two movies, six light novels, two series of drama CD's, around a dozen video games across several formats, and a mountain of merchandise ranging from art books to key chains, Arakawa Hiromu's tale of two brothers is undoubtedly one of the most profitable titles of ... recent years. That said, the jewel in Bones' crown does lack the marketing clout of long-running franchises like One Piece, Bleach and Naruto, and in order to maximise profits the studio has decided to follow a tried and tested method to "advertise" the main series.

Which is a much nicer way of saying that Full Metal Alchemist is the prize cow, and Bones have decided to milk it (again).

The movie opens with a girl dreaming of her past, in particular the moment when a group of soldiers take her and her family away from what looks like a refugee camp. She wakes up to find her brother studying their parent's alchemy research book, but before she can go to bed the siblings hear a strange noise inside the house. Her brother goes to investigate but she secretly follows, only to witness a nightmarish scene that causes her to pass out.

Several years later Central city, the capital of Amestris, is rocked by a prison break on the day of the harvest festival, and a confrontation with an escaping convict leads the Elric brothers on to another adventure.

Okay, it all sounds pretty straightforward, and therein lies one of the main problems with this addition to the Full Metal Alchemist franchise. The overly linear plot and the fact that this is nothing more than another tale about a specific ancient power mean that the storyline is highly predictable - even though the feature is set in a new country with its own history. In addition to this there's a fairly noticeable lack of cohesion with the sequence of events, which may be due to the speed at which the narrative progresses. In order to fit the entire storyline into 110 minutes certain corners needed to be cut, but this has been done with very little care so things can often get a little ... disjointed.

Aside from the over-churned plot, The Sacred Star of Milkos - sorry, Milos - also suffers from a similar "anime-by-numbers" methodology that was prevalent in Guilty Crown, and this becomes obvious when one considers the relevance of characters like Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, and even Winry Rockbell. It's likely that their presence is nothing more than a nod to the fans as their addition adds nothing to the narrative, and this only serves to highlight the fact that this movie has been made for one reason only - and that isn't to tell a story.

Visually this is a bit of a departure from the clean lines and smooth animation that one might expect of the franchise, and the techniques used during action set-pieces have an experimental feel. That said, the detailed artwork lacks the finesse of Brotherhood, and while the character designs are pretty much what one might expect, the movie has a rushed atmosphere that no amount of familiarity can counter. This is reflected by the quality of the animation the attempts to make the action scenes more visceral often has bodies contorting in odd ways. The experimental nature of the visuals also makes the CG stand out, and the obvious disparity can make certain scenes look more than a little odd.

The movie does have an opening theme, but viewers will have to wait ten minutes before they can listen to Miwa's dulcet tones as she sings "Chasing Hearts", a pleasant rock-pop song with an adventurous atmosphere which unfortunately has been relegated to background music for the on-screen action. The Sacred Star of Milos closes with a rather simple sequence depicting a train journey across various landscapes while L'Arc-en-Ciel's serenade viewers with their fourth contribution to the franchise - an upbeat rock ballad called "Good Luck My Way". The rest of the movie has a variety of musical accompaniments composed by Iwashiro Taro ranging from dramatic martial themes to medieval-style ditties and mysterious piano pieces, and for the most part these tracks fit their respective scenes quite well.

Sadly, the movie suffers from the poor scripting that has plagued many shounen titles over the years, and although the actors are as competent as ever, not even their vaunted skills can do much with the typical formula of cheese, shout, run, hit people, shout louder, more cheese, run faster, scream, hit more people, etc, etc. The rather pedestrian dialogue means that The Sacred Star of Milos lacks the emotional charge of its predecessor - a fact that is borne out by the predominantly static characters.

The problem is that this movie is little more than a sideshow rather than a main event, which ironically places this feature below the much maligned Conqueror of Shamballa in terms of development - especially where the Elric Brothers are concerned. The only character who shows any sign of growth is the main heroine - Julia Crichton - but this alone cannot support the weight of a story that relies on previous familiarity with specific characters. While this method of storytelling isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does place limitations on the storyline regarding the actions of particular individuals, and when one adds the fact that several characters are nothing more than window dressing, viewers may find themselves disappointed with the overall lack of depth.

That said, although this addition to the Full Metal Alchemist franchise has more moo than milk, fans will probably find themselves warming to it as it offers them a chance to see the Elric Brothers in action once more. The feature may not be of the same standard as Brotherhood, the original anime adaptation, or even the first movie, but it does offer some moments of pure enjoyment. Although the storyline is relatively simplistic compared to what has gone before, anyone familiar with the franchise will probably find this an easy film to watch - even with the blatant and somewhat redundant reminders of certain past events.

It's just a little sad that a great title is being treated as nothing more than a cash cow, but with The Sacred Star of Milos, hopefully Bones will decide it's time to put the franchise out to pasture.

This will be a long one...

Anyone who has seen the trailer or was looking forward to this film should know that this was filler, me included. However, it's still Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA) so while I wasn't looking forward to this as much as other things, I still would've seen it as soon as it was released. I wasn't aware of the runtime (2 hours) until before I saw the film. I generally don't care for films this long but I had some faith simply because it was FMA and the franchise hasn't let me down... until now.

Story: Generally in films based on something, they want ... to broaden their audience by giving a little background on the characters and why they do what they do. If this film was someone's first Fullmetal Alchemist experience, knowing what it's about might help guide them into the story. Unfortunately, for those who do know about FMA, there might've been a tad too much for my liking. Beyond that the actual story is pretty generic and not very interesting. There wasn't anything to hook me in and it's a story that's been done to death. So I understand giving background for the newer audience but they really should've considered the people that FMA has already roped in. What lead up to the climax is boring... I was waiting quite a while for the plot to kick in and it was maybe halfway in that relevant things started to happen, though I still didn't care enough.

Let's talk about the actual story now. Or, you can just look at the themes that FMA has previously explored and watch/read that again. This is one of the major problems with the film. As a FMA fan, this is nothing new. Even in general, this is nothing we haven't seen before. There are some people being oppressed by the military and they're forced to live in fear under terrible conditions. Not too different from the Ishbalans. The greedy bad guys want the Philosopher's Stone for monies and to make the world into what they feel is a better place. It's up to our heroes to stop them. "Classic filler plot" basically sums up the story to be honest. The plot itself is pretty straightforward barring a few twists that I'm sure many won't see coming. The biggest "facepalm moment" for me was the end of the final fight. One of the most random "because the plot required it"/deus ex machina moments I've seen in a while. More on that later though. Watching how they fight and how it ended really bothered me. There were also plenty of "Oh, that's convenient" moments throughout the film and unfortunately, they're pretty in your face. I was near insulted at how "subtle" they were about them too. I'd like to share them with you but you know, spoilers. Even if you're new to FMA but not new to movie cliches, you shouldn't find this to be a great piece of work. If you didn't care about this story though, I still hope it gets you to check out previous works because those are genuinely good and still hold up.

Art: A little aside for a moment. Compared to Brotherhood, I liked the art for the original series better since they looked more straightforward for lack of a better term. There wasn't anything too strange or different about the way they looked. The faces of the characters looked "sharper" and I was okay with that. I know that both FMA and Brotherhood were made by the same studio and that for Brotherhood, they wanted to mimic the Manga's art style. I can respect that and have no problem with it as they were making faithfulness a priority in both art style and story (Seriously, lots of respect from me here). I suppose I was just used to the first FMA because it came first and I liked it so much. On the other hand, for both series the animation was fantastic. Things looked good as they happened and the characters were animated very well with little or no loss in art quality.

For this film however, I think the art suffered a lot at times. Sometimes the faces of characters simply looked awful. Most of the time, it was fine but you can tell when the quality goes down. There's just this inconsistency that keeps coming up. I would expect more from a movie budget. On the other hand, the animation was just okay. Considering the quick chimeras they fight at some points of the film, the fast movements looked well done and exciting. The train fight was very well done and really one of the few highlights of the movie. What I definitely wasn't a fan of, were the Gurren Lagann shots during fights.

http://cdn.xss.now.cc/images/clubs/3/9348.jpg

If that wasn't a proper screenshot of what I'm talking about but you've seen Gurren Lagann, then you know what I'm talking about. Plenty of shows have utilized this animation style. The movement might look okay but the art suffers tremendously and I don't understand why it has to be this way. I suppose the guys doing it like it but I really didn't care for it at all as it was quite distracting. It felt out of place when used and I didn't want to be reminded of Gurren Lagann when I'm watching FMA.

Sound: I can't comment much on the music. While I was watching it, nothing in the soundtrack stood out to me. I also didn't have an urge to track down the opening or ending song. Just going to give them the benefit of the doubt here since I can't judge this area fairly. The voice acting is fine (Watched the Japanese version) since it's the same cast as FMA Brotherhood and I don't think anyone could find them awful after so many performances. The two filler mains have pretty famous voice actors behind them and I was surprised to later find out who they were. For me, they don't bring in a performance that wowed me but they were fine for the roles they played. Not annoying or horrendous to listen to so I'm good here.

Character: Why were any of the FMA cast even in this film? If you took them out of it and rewrite just a tiny bit the plot could honestly still resolve the same way. I'm all for giving attention to filler characters so they aren't just throw-away one-shots we don't care about but there's no reason to sideline the franchise's actual stars to do so. Ed and Al play the voice of reason in opposing the use of the Philosopher's Stone but really, anybody could've taken this role. Unfortunately, at the end Ed also has to give heroic speech #2148 while fighting the main villain. I'm reminded of all the times that Naruto and Ichigo have to spend time going through a heroic monologue in the middle of a major fight. FMA is better than this.

Winry - I have nothing against Winry but she didn't need to be here at all other than because the writers/plot required it. If you're going to use Winry, make her do something other than fix Ed's arm during a fight. That's all she does here. If the writers didn't make Ed's arm break, she had no business being in this film. We don't need Ed's arm to break to indicate that the villain is strong. In FMA and Brotherhood, her character had things to do other than being a mechanic and that's what made her different from the usual useless female that's just in the show. Here, she's written into the film purely as a fanservice.

Roy - I'm pissed. If there's going to be any bias from me, it's here. To start, he shows up early on in the film so they establish that he's there. Great, now I have something to look forward to. Guess what? He doesn't do anything. He shows up at the final fight, I see him put on his gloves and I'm like "This is it!". He doesn't even participate... All that happens is that after Ed fights the villain a little, they cut to Mustang with some burned chimera on the floor who at this point aren't even a threat. They didn't even show Roy taking them out. It all happened offscreen. What. The. Hell. Despite my dislike of why Winry was in the film, her fixing Ed's conveniently broken arm was far more than anything Mustang did in the whole film. When Mustang showed up in Conqueror of Shamballa, that was a big highlight for many. He did plenty to help and that was great. He had a place in the film because he did what soldiers with guns couldn't do, blow stuff up. And really, in a filler film where they have freedom with the characters, that's not too much to ask for. If you're going to put them in, make them do something.

Everyone else - Armstrong makes a cameo just to whisper something in Mustang's ear, useless. Hawkeye has one bad "comedic" gun scene, useless. That's pretty much it for the characters we know and love. Anyone new to FMA would have no idea the importance of these four characters in the original story. As much as I like these characters, if they were going to be treated like this, I would rather they not be in the film at all. It would honestly be for the good of the film since whoever decided to make these choices with the characters obviously didn't care, so why were they in it? I went into the screening not too excited but knowing that these guys were in it raised some expectations which weren't met in the slightest. I'm pretty sure I'm not in the minority on this.

I didn't care about the filler characters overall but I guess I should I talk about the obligatory female guest st- I mean main character. I'm sure many who see this find her to be a good character and all but I'm not a fan. Sure, she had some moments that one might classify as badass but I question a lot of her decisions. Her main goal is to save her people from the military using the Philosopher's Stone despite Ed and Al's objections that getting involved with the Stone is a no-no. Real-life examples right in front of her with how they messed up their bodies. This becomes a matter of temptation, a major theme in the FMA universe sprinkled all across the series. Later, she gets the Philosopher's Stone (not really a spoiler, you know the stone's going to come up) after watching the villain keep it in his hand to amplify his alchemic abilities. What does she decide to do? Does she decide to not use it, toss it to Ed and learn a lesson about fighting temptation? Does she do that? No, she eats it... which when done previously by other characters in the main series causes them to vomit and stuff. Good thing the plot conveniently doesn't let that happen here. There is no way she would know that eating it is any better than keeping it in hand like the villain did. Anyway, she participates in a crossfire of alchemic beams with the villain which is reminiscent of the final scene when Gohan was fighting Ce- Wait a minute, that's not how they usually fight in FMA at all. In FMA, fights are generally decided by skill and wits, not clashing alchemic beams... Then she wins thanks to [insert generic kizuna/nakama/main character power] reason. Not because of any well thought out reason, just another cliche. The end of the film results in her using the Stone to save her people and etc. with an overall minimal cost compared to the payoff. So, what lesson did we learn? Don't listen to warnings and do whatever? Using this character they have spit on a pretty crucial theme in FMA and that bothers me because I feel FMA is smarter than this.

They're pretty in your face with who the bad guys are. One of the military guys looked like FMA's Yoki, stroking his thin upper lip hair. I wonder if he was a villain? Then, if we didn't already know the FMA military was corrupt, they shove it in your face. Including the Yoki guy, the military is once again keeping people down. This plot has been done to death. Where's the effort? The motivations for the valley people to do what they do is understandable as they're living under the military's control but again, I've seen this a million times so I could care less. Some of the villagers die during parts of the movie, maybe one or two with names. They have a cremation and such but I felt like the plot was revolved around them to make the audience feel sad and sorry for these near nameless characters. Offscreen deaths of characters who aren't established properly or named for the most part aren't going to make me care any more than when a Jedi Council member died in Star Wars Revenge of the Sith.

Enjoyment: Not much. I was expecting something while sitting through the exposition and boring scenes and I got nothing. One of my friends fell asleep. I am severely disappointed and I hope that this will be the last one they make unless the original author writes it or the people who pitch it actually care about what they're working with. Conqueror of Shamballa was not much better but it was far better than this. Lesser of two evils since I can sit through that one again. I'll probably never watch this film again unless I was going to make a commentary/parody of it. Whoever was in charge of this film forgot why people like FMA: the well-done and unique story, smart and memorable characters, and their interactions. I usually hate character fanservice and pandering to the audience but this film REALLY needed some. If there was some effort put into writing a good story like we're used to in FMA, I wouldn't be asking otherwise. In this case however, having Mustang and Armstrong blow stuff up would've been more than welcome despite being shameless. I'm not asking for these two to take down the main villain but even a little more than what we got would've been nice. FMA has such a colorful cast of characters and they're side characters in their own film.

I could easily come up with ideas for a FMA film if it had to be filler. Why couldn't we get a look at Xing? As far as I know, we've never seen the place and those characters made a big impact in the main story. Make one of the clans corrupt if you need an enemy. No different from the usual making of filler villains. The Xing characters have their share of fans so this could be a draw for people to see the film. Since they already established things for an epilogue at the end of Brotherhood, let's see it through. It would be interesting to see how our heroes now spend their days. Or make the story take place before Hughes died. I would've loved to see more Hughes. Are these the best ideas? No. Will there still be some cliches? Probably, but the point is these premises are interesting and have qualities to draw people in. The trailer didn't really have any "awesome" to point out. I'm sure everyone has their share of ideas that would beat this no contest. Filler doesn't have to be bad, especially if you have good characters to carry it. Since this film had to be filler, they had a lot of freedom and they just didn't care, much like Naruto and Bleach fillers/movies. I'm hoping FMA doesn't become one of the many franchises that will continue to be exploited for no reason other than because we can and monies. If they stopped making FMA after Brotherhood, I'd be okay with that as a fan because it had a good run. Brotherhood should be remembered as a well done story and a very faithful adaptation where the effort was clearly seen, something that doesn't come up often these days in Anime adaptations. This is a blatant blemish on an otherwise good record like Cars 2 for Pixar.

Was there anything I liked about the film? At best I thought the train fight at the beginning was exciting and well done. That's about it. I would like to think that the film had potential if it was handled better and there are so many easy ways to improve it. It just unfortunately falls flat and rolls into a lump of cliches which the film could do without if a little thought was put into it. A couple of the twists I can see many people not expecting which might be fun for them but unfortunately, I could predict a lot of them. If you have a masked guy that only shows up for a movie with a self-contained cast, you're going to guess who he is. Unless, well... this.

19:38 in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wu5xfzbY2E

There was also this one scene that I almost couldn't handle and nearly turned away. No, this wasn't because of how bad the film was but more that the "gore" (for lack of a better word) level was too much. It was far more than you'd expect from FMA and since like many other things I've omitted, it's a spoiler so I won't go into detail. However, if after this review you still decide to watch this, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Watch with care... Couldn't they have found a different way to do this scene...? FMA isn't exactly for a young audience but this was too much. Seriously guys...

Overall: I cannot believe that this is close to surpassing Conqueror of Shamballa while there still isn't a home release. I am hoping that when this film gets a wide release, everyone will see how bad it is. Mustang bias aside, you can't include these great characters in a film, not do anything with them and expect fans to be silent. I don't use the word often, but these guys must be trolls. Check out this interview with the director.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2011/otakon/20

He didn't give anything close to a response about Mustang's "involvement". It seemed like an obvious thing to him that fans would be mad about everything that Mustang didn't get to do. He doesn't even TRY to explain himself. All he does is dodge the question by telling us something obvious. When asked about other FMA countries and the manga's ending, he just dodges it by saying that's the original creator's department. What?! Ask the author? No, we're asking YOU. Did you really think that those wouldn't be good ideas for a filler story? If he at least said that the creator wouldn't let them use those, fine but that's not what happened at all so guess who I'm not siding with? According to Anime News Network, the guy who wrote the screenplay has only previously worked on Doraemon. Come on... is that the guy who you'd count on to write an FMA film following the quality of Brotherhood? Let me just say I have nothing against the guy but it does seem to be a questionable choice when the only other Anime he's worked on was Doraemon. At least we learn from the link that FMA's creator had nothing to do with the story. I would feel even worse if she did and lose a lot of respect for her. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this film to anyone, not even FMA fans. It was a big letdown but I'm sure dvd sales and box office will be as good as ever so the movie makers won't care. But if you haven't seen/read anything FMA before, check out anything else besides this movie. FMA is something that can easily stand the test of time and is much better than a lot of things being put out these days.

As a fan of FMA I wanted to give my honest thoughts about the film because I walked out of it disappointed and mad. Again, one of the people I saw this with fell asleep... The plot holes, repetitiveness/reuse of plotlines, boring and cliche story, villains with no dimension, blatant ignoring of actual FMA characters who were in the film anyway for no reason, unnecessarily random and over the top "gore" scene, unreasonable runtime for what's in the film, and lack of FMA-ness killed it for me. It just didn't bring anything new to the table because while cliche stories can be done well or presented in a new way, that didn't happen here. It's all about the execution guys.

Thanks for reading my review. I know this was a long one. I would appreciate feedback if you have any.

An unfortunate truth about the anime industry is that movies of long-running shounen manga are always trite and unremarkable: uninspired scenarios and forgettable guest characters being among the main reasons why. Though it's not surprising. Why bother thinking up an interesting plot when you know people will be drawn to the popular brand it's based on anyhow?

''Full Metal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos'' – based on the acclaimed manga - is no exception. It's a forgettable if somewhat serviceable adventure flick with some exciting action sequences and a lacking story. No different from the dozens of other films of this type.

It's ... a shame, considering the plot showed promise; but it's all pulled off too clumsily to ever turn into a satisfying experience.

The biggest problem is that the writing is sloppy. The guest stars (ie. characters exclusive to the movie) and central conflict are introduced in a hasty manner. The main antagonists in particular are too vaguely established to ever feel like a genuine threat, and that's not getting into the fact that some of their actions end up feeling counterproductive or that there's nothing stopping them before the Elric brothers arrive. Speaking of which, those two really feel like empty shells of themselves. Al feels more like a living plot device while Ed is relegated to being a generic action hero. Worse yet is that they shoehorn in fan favorites like Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye only to have their involvement amount to nothing. What the hell, Bones?

Meanwhile, the more successful elements (like the interesting setting) are underdeveloped or feel repackaged from the main series. The one exception being female lead Julia Crichton, who consistently plays an active role and has a solid character arc that mirrors the Elrics' in a cool manner.

Other positives are that the movie is solid in the audiovisual department. Though the offbeat animation style during fight scenes (reminiscent of ''Gurren Lagann'' and ''Tetsuwan Birdy Decode'') might rub some people the wrong way. There's also a conspicuous amount of still frames for an anime movie, though that's probably the price to be paid for going all-out during the elaborate action sequences.

Despite some good points, ''The Sacred Star of Milos'' is simply lacking when compared to its pedigree. Full Metal Alchemist has, in all its incarnations, garnered a large following because it's always pushed the envelope for what a fighting shounen can be. This film simply can't match up to that legacy.

I find it appalling to know these people voted a 5 or below. This movie was great in all aspects. It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time through.

Prequels and sequels are known to be tough to do well. They're dependent on and constrained by the original work (because of 'Fate/ Stay Night', we all know that certain characters in 'Fate Zero' have invulnerable plot armor). Still, there have been examples of such works that earn high critical praise. However, there is a third type of '-quel', the 'Interquel'- a story that takes place during an existing story. To my knowledge this type of story has NEVER produced an exceptional work. Not even Fullmetal Alchemist, though 'Sacred Star' does make for a decent time for existing FMA fans.

-Story-

'Sacred Star' is set during the ... 'Brotherhood' storyline, but feels like it came out of the original anime- for all the wrong reasons. The plot is basically a movie length version of "The Elrics find a lead on the Philosopher's Stone, investigate, and it turns out to not be the real thing". There must be at least half a dozen filler episodes in the original anime that have the same story. Now, the story isn't all bad, we do get some cool world building that existing FMA fans will enjoy, and even if you can see the twists coming the journey is enjoyable just because we get to head back to Amestris one more time. The great downfall of any 'Interquel' is that it categorically CANNOT do anything that would disrupt the main plot, so there are limits to how big the consequences of any action can be (come on, we all know going in that the Elrics aren't going to find something that will get them their bodies back).

-Art & Sound-

Little to say here. The animation production values are decent for a movie-length release, and sound is fine with the same voice actors reprising their roles from the main series. The art style is slightly different from 'Brotherhood', but that's not a plus or minus.

-Characters-

We already know the main cast, and they stick to their established personas, so no harm no foul. The new characters Ed and Al meet are interesting enough, but not to the point that I wish could see lots more of them. There is some exploration of what it's like to be a small people group caught between two large and powerful nations, but not to any truly deep level. Being an interquel, the main characters are static- character development is strictly for the main storyline.

-Enjoyment-

As a FMA fan, I did enjoy getting to see the Brothers in action again, but I was also able to predict the plot long before it happened. New FMA fans probably won't see what all the fuss is over if this is their first look into the franchise. Treat 'Sacred Star' as a little diversion and you'll enjoy it well enough.

-Overall-

'The Sacred Star' is not a bad movie, but it's not truly a good movie either. It's a movie-length filler episode with some good production values and cool world building. Enjoyable if you need more FMA in your life, but hardly the defining work of the franchise.

If you saw the trailer for this movie then you will be excited to watch it. Full of action packed scenes, drama, and everything Fullmental Alchemist related : )
Fullmetal Alchemist: Milos no Seinaru Hoshi or The Sacred Star of Milos---
Ed and Al journey to a far away land Cleta. where a war for territory between the inhabitants of Milos and Clieta fight over for the Star of Blood. The City of Milos used to be a beautiful country but now a desolate place being controlled by the Cletans. The Cleatan are searching for the Star of Blood in order to create a new world ... order. We meet Julia, her family researched the Star of Blood. She and the Milos people are fighting against the Cletans while looking for the Star of Blood in order to reclaim their country. But at a price!!!! Ed and Al must stop them at all costs. Fullmetal Alchemist fans will like this movie : )

This is going to be a Johnny-Come-Lately review, but after watching FMA: Sacred Star of Milos, I realized something about anime movies like this--non-canon movies about an established franchise stuck somewhere nebulously within the main plot--that's been bothering me for a lot of years now, and I felt like I wanted to share it.

When I got done watching the movie, I didn't dislike it necessarily and I wasn't gushing about it. I barely had any reaction at all. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I thought the same thing about a lot of these non-canon movies (e.g. the Cowboy Bebop ... movie, the Trigun movie, a lot of the One Piece movies). I don't hate them, but I don't love them either.

That's when I realized that there are systemic story problems with non-canon intra-story that prevent the story from having any sort of meaningful impact. Here's my logic as it relates to the FMA movie:

One of the aspects of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood that I liked the most were the characters. Most of the principal cast felt like they grew and changed throughout the story. They learned new things, they changed a little, they thought of things differently, they had character arcs that built up throughout the series.

The problem is that since the character arcs of the main FMA characters are already established by the show, there's really no way for them to grow in the movie. If the Elric brothers had some grand earth-shattering revelation during the course of the movie that fundamentally altered their worldview, wouldn't it be silly if they just discarded it by the time they left the movie's setting?

This means that for convenience for the greater FMA story, everyone who's involved in the main story who is in the movie has to simply have no change whatsoever. You can't make a movie like this though, because then the plot of the movie will just be what the Simpsons would call, "a bunch of stuff that happened," so what happens is that they toss in a group of side characters who have arcs throughout the course of the movie in order to have some sort of emotional climax.

However, non-canon side characters in anime movies generally have much less screen time than the main story characters because an anime creator wouldn't have a side character upstage a main character. The result is that the emotional core of anime movies like FMA:SSoM is built on top of shaky ground and the characterization looks and feels extremely weak compared to the show.

What you end up with with FMA:SSoM is a group of main characters that don't grow at all, a story that's visually appealing but doesn't have any impact to the FMA world as a whole, a setting that's far removed from the main story so as to have zero impact, and a bunch of side characters that grow in a rushed and superficial way.

Which is a shame, because the art and animation is decent in the movie, and the dub is top notch (Funmation's voice actors did an amazing job with FMA as a whole), and we sympathize with the characters' struggles in the show.

I don't want to say, "Don't watch this!" because it's not a bad movie on the whole, but it lacks impact and is generally forgettable. Rent it from Netflix if you want a lazy Sunday movie.

Sacred Star of Milos was made in mind as a final cash-in for Bones to milk off their rebooted adaptation of FMA via Brotherhood. As a stand-alone film, Milos is a decent anime-only storyline with Ed and Al having to tend to a complicated conflict occurring in a valley town with hostilities between nations, with a pair of alchemist siblings involved with those living in Milos Valley fighting to reclaim their homeland. There is enough time within the movie to flesh out details on this conflict and the two major movie exclusive characters where you can grow to care for the conflict that takes place. ... Unfortunately, the quality of the film's second half does take somewhat of a hit when more cliched storytelling elements come into play with the motives concerning one major character which play out no differently from the power-hungry military leaders of Amestris seen in Brotherhood and some rather convenient plot twists over events that occur. Beyond Ed and Al, the majority of characters who are in the FMA canon are mostly worthless in their existence within this movie as they only exist to fill screen time. Plus with it existing only as an anime-exclusive film, the events in Milos don't significantly affect anything with in FMA's actual plot continuity and doesn't really add anything new to the series.

Visually, the film is a bit of a mixed bag. The scenic shots conveyed have a good amount of detail to them and are nicely drawn, doing well to show the differing living conditions between those within Table City and those within Milos Valley. The animation is also a step up from the Brotherhood anime as it features CG rendering at points with train shots and some of the piping used for alchemy during action scenes which are quite fluid, have no noticeable shortcuts and have their engaging points such as Ed fighting on top of a train with a chimera and some of the later heated conflicts that break out resulting in destruction throughout Table City. On the other end of the spectrum, character designs aren't much different in their level of detail and color shading from the TV anime, and their quality tends to degrade at points either during distant shots or whenever scenes get rather heavy on action.

Overall, Milos is a decent entry in the FMA anime franchise despite it not contributing anything new to the FMA mythos. Despite its second half somewhat suffering in quality, its rather complicated plot between factions and the development with Julia's character is still an engaging one to see throughout the movie's run.

First off - I'm a massive supporter of FMA....
I rank the manga within the best manga's I have ever read, I loved Brotherhood, the Gecko season 1 and the OVA's.
The prospect of a feature film was something I looked forward to, I wanted to like it...
...and then it came!

Story...
The main character is a pretty (I assume) teen girl with a tragic past, living in a repressed civilasation - her journey begins pretty much just as Ed and Al are on the scene.
We now have a plot, so no need for persoanlity when we have the 'sad and serious' setting in place.
Now, we enter into a ... story of; mysteries that scream predictability and idealism threatening genuien hardship.
It's difficult to describe the story's content without spoiling it, however, you only need to view about half an hour of it in order to predict spoilers - take thefilms description, my discription in the first sentence within this 'story...' paragraph, aswell as the words 'predictability' and 'idealism'.

Sound...
Fine, good vioces, appropriot music threwout the scenes and a pretty uplifting ending theme.

Art...
As usual, the scenery is beyond stunning - great detail in the grand buildings and pretty sky views.
The character design on the otherhand seems massivley rushed - the proportions are slightly off and the shadeing is almost absent at times.

Characters...
As stated above - no personality surrounding the lead - those connected to her play minors pretty much and also, fail to stand out.
Honestly, Ed and Al are hardly make it to 'minor' status - the two of them taking a back seat as they were getting wrapped up in someone elses tale would easily prove approriot, but no, this film is the equivalent of a zealous fanfiction with the author shipping their ideal characters in their retelling of a series.
Both anime's featured side characters and the 'never to be seen' receiving their 'moment in the spotlight' in a sensible manner that made them of the up-most importiance, yet the leads still relivant.
The odd few fellow known faces such as; Winry and Mustang are simply background art.

Enjoyment...
This was a chore to get threw. :(

Overall...
Hardly FMA; it seems more 'material for a stand alone film with the FMA title and characters thrown in to give it a better chance'.
To be frank, I can only sum this film up as a masive waste of time!
This 1 hour and 50 minute of mediore could have been condensed into 30 minutes and branded a OVA, it may have been a tad more enjoyable then?
Difference being, the OVA's feature content that could contribute to the overall story- this, hardly.

First of all, I love everything that is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, so I was so happy that they made a movie after FMA Brotherhood ended. Story: The story was great, full of suspense to the end with new kinds fights (awesome fights) with alchemy and brand new story which takes place in a different part of Amestries, Ed's country. It is really very good for the eyes because you don't get bored with the same place or area that you have already seen. Art: Well, the art was 90% good. It was not like Brotherhood at all and didn't have that much quality but it ... was smooth and easy-flowing. Sound: As usual, the sound was great. The opening and the ending themes were fantastic. When you listen to them, you feel they were meant for FMA Brotherhood. They express Ed and Al to the core. The background music was terrific and very energetic. What can I say aout the characters? I love Ed. He is super hot and his English voice is so dreamy. He is the best and so are Mustang, Armstrong, Olivie, Hughes, the Homunculus, and many more. They are just so cool. I enjoyed it fully, so go and watch this masterpiece. I love you, FMA Brotherhood. Make more movies please because we miss it.

This review is just a brief "summary", it isn't a "great" well-thought out review, it took a few minutes to type on impulse; it's just a brief overview of how the movie is. There's some generalized spoilers, and some creative language.

I started the movie feeling pretty great, it inflected a great mood; I began reminiscing on how I don't credit FMA enough for carrying the shounen genre with a bearable series. FMA in my book, remains the only series to accentuate a "strong" shounen feel, it isn't melodramatic, the characters aren't fucking idiots, and it's logically held with in-depth mechanics. Despite those redeeming qualities, ... very few of those were prominent in this movie, however, it wasn't necessarily a "bad" movie, it remained enjoyable, but it was objectively mediocre.

Unfortunately, after the reminiscing was over, it started to go downhill from there: incessant bad developments ensued. Every development leaned towards the traditional "bad" cliche shounen, something that Fullmetal Alchemist typically doesn't represent; every other development halfway through changed from possibly ingenuous, to innocuously "bad" (deus ex machinaes). The first half was written by someone aspiring to retain the traditional Fullmetal Alchemist feel, while the second half was a collaboration between Ao no Exorcist and Guilty Crown. As much as I would like to criticize the weak plot, it wasn't completely bad. Some developments were somewhat "good", the "bad" ones just overshadowed the "good" in this case.

Now the ending to this was also somewhat lackluster; it appeared to be a logically impossible "happy ending". The new characters were essentially on the brink of destroying the entire world, there isn't logic in granting them freedom without punishment. It's great that a smaller nation got it's "independence", but it's kind of surrounded by two powers. One power has a brigade of alchemists, while the other has a arsenal of chimeras. All it has is strong will, and determination, that isn't enough to defend itself against attack. Unless the surrounding nations contest the newly "independent" territory leading to a stalemate, but that's just the best case scenario.

Overall, was an enjoyable watch I guess, didn't really expect much out of the movie. Although that ending with Ed complementing her was unneeded and somewhat forced, there wasn't exactly any development between those two, nevertheless actual chemistry.

Also, where the fuck was the Mustang action, all he did was watch; I expected fucking fireballs everywhere. Seriously, probably one of the biggest what the fucks is him standing there while lasers are shooting everywhere. He has less than 30 lines this movie, he doesn't do anything but watch. Killed his vindictive personality.

Objective Rating 5/10: It should be lower, but it being Fullmetal Alchemist rather than some other series alleviates some of the criticism. What FMA possesses is a unparalleled world on mechanics, alchemy. There isn't a shounen anime that comes close to it, it's just ingenuous and "balanced".

Subjective Rating 6/10: More enjoyable if you watch it braindead.

I have to say, as a loyal FMA fan from the beginning, this was like saying hello to an old friend for the first time in years. Addicted to the original series as it came out, I saw a small portion of Brotherhood and just couldn't get into it very easily, so after finding out that this movie was directly linked to the original series, I had to see it right away. This movie feels like something clear-cut from the original FMA, it feels like every aspect is all there that made me love it so much--aside from a few unavoidable changes. Everything changes with ... time, but this was a change that was easily welcomed to one of my favorite anime of them all.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The sacred star of Milos is a gem in the franchise, outshining the previous movies and OVA's with a well-written story and excellent animation/voice work done by the original cast. (minus Alphonse, but it has been years, to be fair!) The new characters integrated into the plotline were interesting strangers from the beginning, but their performance pulls you in as the movie progresses until you begin to appreciate their roles far more as it goes on. The 'sketchy' animation changes seem a little odd compared to the sharpness of the original series, but compared to Brotherhood's 'glossy' animation, I have to say I prefer this style far more; it's beautiful to watch, the new CGI style ties everything together well and watching it in true HD was a pleasure!

The soundtrack was magnificent, albeit a little missed compared to how much everything else ensnared your attention throughout the duration of the film. The return of familiar characters truly felt like reuniting with long-lost family, and I found these new characters to be exciting to witness interacting with the classic cast. Overall, I find it wonderful that this storyline is inserted into the original series, so no knowledge of Brotherhood is needed to enjoy the sacred star of milos. The story to Fullmetal Alchemist has been concluded twice before, but the possibility of more Elric brother adventures as OVA's or films of this style would be a treasure all their own.

Thank you for reading my first review, and I hope you enjoy the movie!

I normally don't write Reviews - and im not good at it either - but since i've readed some of the other reviews for this movie, i feel like i just had to write a short review.

This movie got way too much negative critic. Indeed it wasn't perfect, but it wasn't horrible either.

Story: The film starts out with a good mood, Ed and Al is on the run again.
They get involved with some strange man who escaped from prison,
and end up helping a girl and her village (very very short told)

The problem with this story is that theres nothing new really. They are just ... building on from what we know, Al and Ed searching for a way to get their bodys back, they help some random people, theres some awesome fights and thats it.

Sound: The sound was good enough, the song in the start of the film was really good, the fighting scenes had fitting music too and the Romi and Rie is as always amazing voice actors. The other voice actors didn't really stand out in my opinion ..

Art: I personally did NOT like the art. sure it wasn't horrible, i just think its a pity that the animators chose to animate the movie like this, when the series have such AMAZING animations! It's the same animators for this movie and the other FMA movie and series, so why the hell did they chose to animate FMA with the old-style raw animation? I don't get it.



Characters: Well the characters where fine too. I actually kinda liked Julia, she wasn't annoying as the typical shounen-movie chick is. (And yeah, theres always a chick .. Naruto, Bleach, theres always a chick in the movies our heros gotta help) However this movie lack of our old FMA cast. Roy mustang was hardly shown, and on the other hand Winry was obviously only shown for fan service .. fan service is good, but please put it on the right places! Im sure everyone would have LOVED roy to be actually in action in this movie, instead of Winry running around.

Enjoyment: again... fine. I enjoyed it, because i didn't had my hope up for this film to start with anyway. Actually i expected this to be worse.

Overall: I give this movie 7 . It's fine enough. The problem here is that its not near the standard of the FMA series . I myself only watched FMAB but i heard a lot about series one too. This is just a normal filler movie, like the many fillers movies they made for Naruto and Bleach and One piece .. the problem here is just that people expect everything from FMA to be EPIC and this movie was NOT. it was just a standard filler shounen movie, as they make so many of on other popular series. They made this movie to get money obviously.

But overall i will believe that IF you are a FMA fan, you will be able to enjoy this, if you from the start is aware of this being a filler film, and the animation and story not being as awesome as the series. Because this film have all the things we love; Edward and Alphonse, on the run, kicking some ass!

FMA's final bout is Milos no Seinaru Hoshi, a movie that should have been Ed and Al's final goodbye to all of their loyal fans. However, this films suffers from the lack of what made FMA one of the greatest anime in the history of anime, the Elrick brothers.

The only reason, and I repeat, the only reason I watched this movie was to say a final farewell to Ed, Al, Mustang, and Riza. These characters were the reason why I personally loved FMA and was so intrigued by it. This movie gave me everything except for these iconic characters. I mean, sure there were ... the odd brotherly love between Ed and Al but not nowhere enough to what I really wanted. This movie focuses on Julia and her brother, Ashley, and their journey, as well as the journey of the people of Milos. One thing that I really found interesting about this movie is how well done the story is. Without giving anything away the plot was extremely realistic and what happens in the movie is actually happening in todays world.

There is no reason for this movie to not be drawn exceptionally well. FMA is a long lasting anime that has sold very well and has probably made Bones a lot of money, if it didn't they wouldn't have made this movie. So you would except the movie that they make to have exceptional artwork most cases it does, the fights are done very well and the character movements seems flawless. However, and I might be the only one that feels this way, I feel as if the art of the actual anime was better then this movie (again this is only my opinion).

This movie is enjoyable, I loved being able to see Ed and Al interaction again and every scene with Mustang and Riza made me very happy but this movie did not give me the closure that I wanted from this series. I love FMA and I'm sure that most people that watch this movie also love FMA and there is no way that I'm going to tell you not to watch this movie, however, you should know that this movie is not meant to give us any closure from our FMA highs (especially because this movie is supposed to be placed between episodes 15 and 22) but this movie is more of FMA, and I guess that is all that matter.

This is kind of loosely based off of Fullmetal Alchemist and yet… the addition to Julia seems as though it was a fan character brought into the show. The story brings the Elric brothers far from Central and the areas where they are normally are in both anime. Unfortunately, it is the same story line we almost always have. Apprised people trying to get their land back. The story feels kind of old when you keep making it all about a hunt for the philosopher’s stone.

There are a couple inconsistencies that happen within this show like the fact that there is a Chimera ... that has some human in him but yet it seems that he isn’t having any problems with his body unlike every other Chimera that we have seen.

I’m not sure, but Julia seems to be a Mary Sue character in a sense. Everything bad is happening to her and yet she seems to be able to get out of her predicaments. They basically showed her as a girl that has had really bad things happen to her since a young age. She has had no time to have anything good happen and bad things happen to her. Even the story about her brother seems rather sappy.

The whole story line seems to be exactly like every other storyline where a group of people are fighting for some ‘holy land’ somewhere. I’m wondering if the people who wrote Fullmetal Alchemist and the ones who wrote this one have something to do with the whole ‘Jews and Israel’ thing. It also gets really gory, lots of blood and guts scenes.

When they show the CG, it actually looks pretty well done. They made it look rather close to the animation but it seems to be used unnecessarily in times when the item is still. This shows up in the first few minutes where there is a close up of Edward’s hand. The rest of the animation is actually pretty much the same as the anime, beautiful details and sometimes exceeding the anime. The fighting sometimes seems a bit awkward at times since we get a lot of flashing lights from alchemist. Now a bunch of characters seem to be rehashed versions of old characters.

The voices are actually alright, though I’m not sure about Julia Crichton’s voice though. It seems really sweet and innocent. Vic does a perfect job as Edward as always.

I watched the dub version as I am a fan of Vic Mignogna's work, and I feel this movie did not disappoint.

From the beginning, I knew that this would be a side-story from Brotherhood, would introduce a new female lead character (of which I did not automatically dismiss as a Mary-Sue as opposed to SOME people), and it would be about a new form of alchemy in some town called Milos.

You get most of that from news articles and trailers. I don't know what else people were expecting and I just don't see why people can't just enjoy it as if they were promised something ... else that wasn't delivered. All in all, this is a good movie.

The military practices are still here. The lead was bad-@$$, especially towards the end. Any hint of romance toward the end was cute, but not unsettling as we all saw how the series ended. I was even laughing out loud at some parts, especially when Ed was just arriving in Milos.

The only thing I didn't like was that Winry had such a minor role. It was like they dropped her in the middle of a big battle just to fix Ed's automail. But that's not enough to ruin it.

Movie = Awesome.

I'm a bit torn on this. All in all it was a fun movie, but I couldn't help but think that with a little rewriting, this movie could've been completely standalone and wouldn't even have necessarily played in the FMA universe. Ed and Al are there and do their thing, but I can see the movie playing out more or less similarly without them. I'm not saying they were useless, but rather that the movie seemed disconnected from the rest of the story - not like an OVA episode that plays in-universe but disconnected to the main plot, but rather it seemed like the chracters ... where taken completely out of their universe and placed in a different movie script (which kiiiiinda happens on a smaller scale). Mustang, Hawkeye, Winry and Armstrong also show up, but more or less only as a cameo - which did feel rather forced at some points, but helped the story feel more "in universe" and actually connected to the rest of the franchise.

The movie was alright I suppose, but at the same time I didn't really feel like I was watching FMA. The story itself seemed shaky at some parts, too, I'm not sure if it was underexplained or actual plotholes, but parts left me confused and at other parts I could swear that isn't how alchemy worked in this universe before. That being said, I still enjoyed the story. Kind of a 6 1/2 for me.

On the technical side of things the mixing stuck out to me. I'm not sure if this was an issue with my streaming provider, but the fight scenes were super loud while the dialogue was almost inaudible at points - I kept having to rearrange the volume to hear something while not bothering my neighbours.

Also the art seemed surprisingly dated and rushed at some points, considering this released after Brotherhood and had a movie-budget. The original chracters at times looked like they were borrowed from another early 2000s anime. And Ed in particular stuck out to me as not really looking like himself at times, with the proportions being off and his eye colour (while looking really pretty) not matching up with the usual - it seemed more green than golden at times, which was a bit odd, given that his eye colour is even described in the dialogue in Brotherhood. Same thing went for Hawkeye, but that was more forgivable, given that she isn't the literal main character. It kinda had the feel of a fanfiction or new interpretation of the franchise, rather than an entry in the existing interpretation (which from the release date I'd have sorted as playing during Brotherhood).

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and the original manga Fullmetal Alchemist together is one hell of a series. It has always been and continues to be my favorite animation, manga, and story. Today I re-watched the movie that followed the end of the Brotherhood series, Fullmetal Alchemist: the Sacred Star of Milos.

The movie tackles the usual themes of Fullmetal Alchemist: the value of truth, imperialism, death, and hints of feminism. I believe this movie, especially after having seen the Brotherhood series multiple times, concisely captures these themes. It shows us the dangers of blindly pursuing the truth, and how it can be corrupted by power and greed. ... It shows us the devastating impacts of imperialism through the plight of Ishvalans, alluding to the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. The movie goes a step further and shows us the abominable condition of the people of Milos –commenting on the humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

I believe one of the most important themes –and whose importance I had just realized – is Death. Fullmetal Alchemist bids us to think of our lives as finite. This is the reason why we were introduced to the Philosopher's stone and human transmutation in the original series; and it continues to persuade us to think of it as so in this movie. What does it mean to have a finite life? Well, it means that this is the only life that matters. It means that we have a limited amount of time. Instead of thinking about what lies beyond, we come to focus on the precious and small amount of time we have left. This is something Heidegger tried to teach us in Being and Time, and he would agree with Hiromu Arakawa –the author of the manga– that it is mistaken and inauthentic to ignore our finiteness.

Another astounding fact about this series is that Hiromu Arakawa is possibly the most successful and critically acclaimed female mangaka in an industry dominated by men. I believe her awareness of such a fact allows her to write compelling female characters that are unseen in other Shonen works. This is probably one of the reasons why Fullmetal Alchemist is appealing to so many. We have a female general like Olivia Armstrong who is ambitious, commanding, politically savvy, selfless, and caring. No wonder she trains and leads the strongest army in her country. We also have Izumi Curtis who is probably the strongest human being in the series and a brilliant alchemist who guided the main characters as a teacher and a mother. She isn't merely just a strong person though. She is a sympathetic character who failed to have a child with her husband and tried to bring it back by performing a human transmutation –causing the loss of her organs and the pain of seeing her child die again. This kind of complex and compelling characterization of women can be seen in this movie as well. Julia is a rebel who fights to take back her country. She is troubled by the implications of using a Philosopher's stone. She is troubled by the egregious deeds of her ancestors and family members. Yet, she musters up the courage to not only keep fighting but to use her life and the Philosopher's stone as a means to protect her people. This is not something you see in mainstream Shonen manga.

Some may say that these themes were already explored in Brotherhood. My answer: so what? These are timeless questions that we need to keep asking ourselves. If you do not see them as such, I would be tempted to say that you wasted your time watching the series.

Last but not least, let's talk about the animation. The animation of Brotherhood was superb, and the same studio animated the movie as well. It showcased a slew of different styles, beautiful landscapes, and even some 3D animation. The colors were vivid and it really helped hit home the exotic nature of this adventure film. I greatly enjoyed this film and I recommend it alongside Brotherhood and the manga.

Update: upon watching some truly atrocious anime, I've decided to bump my rating of this up two notches, mainly for the art and characters. Make no mistake, I still support everything else in this review.

Having finished FMA '03 (FMA), Conqueror of Shamballa (COS), and FMA Brotherhood (FMAB), it was only natural to move on to Sacred Star of Milos (SSM). While I still have my gripes with the ending of FMA and COS, they provided a reasonable ending to that story, if not a completely satisfying one. As COS was a film, I had certain expectations of it regarding production quality, and I was not ... disappointed; Sacred Star of Milos, however, did not rise to any of those expectations, to put it mildly.

Story-wise, this movie is filler; while it uses some concepts and characters from FMAB, it doesn't influence the series in any way and is never referenced in FMAB. Consequently, most of the suspense is dulled as you know none of the core characters suffer any permanent damage — unfortunately, this means they don't learn anything new either, and the characters and events introduced here are forgotten as if they never existed. However, this is not necessarily bad, as maintaining the status quo is a requirement of midquels.

Story - 3/10

If you've seen anything FMA-related in the past, the plot will hold no secrets or suspense; rather, some plot points are annoyingly convenient and border on lazy writing - for example: the existence of so many philosopher's stones, and the fact that everyone and their mother — including non-alchemists — seems to know what human transmutation does.

As for the pacing, it felt like most of the scenes of the movie were stuck together without any kind of cohesive transition, and the storytelling was pretty basic: this is the part where we're shown the horrors of war, this is the part where we find out the bad guys aren't actually bad, this is the part where the heroine is in a pinch but gets saved at the last minute (several times!) and so on. Thus, the progression of the movie feels less organic and more like rushing to get to the next checkpoint on the list, resulting in a soulless story.

Characters - 3/10

The characters come across as shadows of their former selves. During the first half hour, I kept questioning why a movie called 'Fullmetal Alchemist' features so little of the title character, and this persists throughout the entire movie: Ed and Al appear very little and don't actually seem to do much aside from infodumping and stating the obvious. I have seen numerous complaints that FMA 2003 was plagued by filler episodes, but even those offered insight into character motivations and backstories ergo they were of value to character development, if not to the overall plot. Since it offers no character development to any of the core cast of FMAB, nor any development to the FMAB story, this movie is, from a functional perspective, less useful than a filler episode.

Most of the action in SSM falls on the shoulders of Julia, the new main character, who, despite appearing more than the Elric brothers, is developed less than Rose from either TV series. Mustang, Riza and Armstrong appear solely to draw viewers in and have even less importance in the plot than the Elric brothers. The villains themselves hold little suspense if you're even slightly familiar with the FMA tendency of having a Big Bad behind the first villain.

Art - 4/10

And now we get to my second biggest complain about the movie: the art and animation. Bearing in mind that animation (movement and production) and art (character design and style) are two different things, it is possible for one to be better than the other, as is the case here, with the animation being notably better than the art. Contrary to the style we've become familiar with in previous FMA works, the character designs in SSM feature few sharp edges (making their hair look like putty — especially Ed and Julia's) and small pupils (which make them look permanently distressed), and their faces lack detail.

The action sequences have a noticeable sketchy and stretchy look, which fits as long as you don't linger on them. Animation-wise, the battle sequences and even general movement in SSM aren't as fluid as in the TV series, which was a disappointment considering the fact that, as a movie, SSM should have had more attention paid to these. Add to this the lack of closeup shots in favor of either zoom-ins or shots from far away (probably to mask the bad art), and you've got a very static-looking movie.

Sound - 4/10

The 2 points [edit: later bumped up to 4] I gave to this movie are mostly for the voice acting, which was on par with the TV series; I will blame the excessive shouting on the bad direction, not the actors. As for the soundtrack: while none of the OP or ED pieces caught my attention, the score was decent and supported the scenes well, albeit forgettable as the other parts of this movie.

Enjoyment - 3/10

Overall, I feel this should be avoided even as a fan of the FMA story; it adds nothing new and may even sour one's enjoyment of the previous stories in retrospect. Furthermore, most of it features mistakes in filmmaking in general: dumping too much information and plots at the same time, introducing many characters without giving them any depth, underusing core characters, and dropping what makes the FMA story interesting in favor of soap opera-level cliches — all of which make this movie a chore to watch.

Overall - 4/10

Personally, I only watched this for the sake of completion, but even as I was watching it I began to regret the wasted time. I'm normally a proponent of having people form their own opinion on something, but this time I feel I need to say this: avoid Sacred Star of Milos, you're not getting that time back.

Hmm Overall I think this movie was ok. It wasn't the best but it wasn't the worst.

Plot: 7.5 (I like to round up so 8 :P)
It was simple. Not hard to follow.
A fugitive alchemist with mysterious abilities leads the Elric brothers to a distant valley of slums inhabited by the Milos, a proud people struggling against bureaucratic exploitation. Ed and Al quickly find themselves in the middle of a rising rebellion, as the exiled Milos lash out against their oppressors. At the heart of the conflict is Julia, a young alchemist befriended by Alphonse. She'll stop at nothing to restore the Milos to their former ... glory – even if that means harnessing the awful power of the mythical Philosopher's Stone. Easy right? :P

Art: 6 The art was.....okay. It wasn't my cup of tea but it felt really rushed. Barely any shading, the tips of the hair oh gawd, As a anime artist myself it feels...frustrating. Also as you go on you notice that the quality seems to drop.

Sound: 7
The sound suited the scenes but there wasn't many that were memorable.

Characters: 7
Some of them felt OOC. Ed.. well only got mad like once the whole time. Roy and Riza felt...Useless? Al was..Al was ok I guess. The new characters were ok. Julia and her bro were like normal Naive people...their age. What I didn't like was they tried to put Al and Julia together! Ed you traitor! I thought you shipped AlMei too! ;^; (I ship AlMei lol)

Enjoyment: 7
It was ok. There was nothing to keep my eyes on the screen 100% of the time but there was enough for me to continue.

Overall: 7.5 soo 8 :P