easygoingm2 I've watched the series and played the games, but this movie was almost made to perfection in regards to Fullmetal Alchemist. To embrace realistic history and expand in another direction is extremely clever. Truly a story of respect for family and devotion to civil duty. Every character was spot on with no lack of intensity. Even with the addition of new characters and more common elements I thought it was a brilliant move to take equivalent exchange to a whole different level. If I wore a hat I would take it off to the writers, animators, and director(s). I'll do my best to finish "Brotherhood" as soon as I can. Well done sirs.

partyearth I'm all prepped to start FMA: Brotherhood on Hulu, but I have to get this review out of the way first. I wasn't expecting anything legendary when I started watching this movie, but I was relieved I didn't have to let the old series go right away. This movie is awesome! It has a bunch of things I liked about the FMA series (Mustang being awesome, Ed wisecracking during fight scenes, and HUGHES OMG), and combined it with new ideas (World War 2, for example). I would recommend it to EVERYONE who watched the FMA series. I realize people seemed to REALLY hate this movies's ending, but I was fine with it (I wasn't until Al came with him that I was really OK with it...). It gave me a sense of closure I didn't have before about the series. And I liked Noah a lot for some reason (am I the only one who noticed that she looked like rose??).9/10

dmk092 FMA is a great anime (on par with Cowboy Bebop), which made the movie all that more of a letdown.. It wasn't bad; the animation is good and the story was okay, however the plot was severely lacking. After I finished watching the movie, my first impression was that someone had made an excellent movie, removed a fifth of it, and replaced it with fan service. The plot simply does not flow; there are a number of instances where plot devices are randomly introduced and just as quickly dropped (e.g. the spear of longinus), where the story progression seems horribly contrived (Ed's conversations with Fritz Lang-especially the talk about parallel worlds), and where important scenes have simply been removed without compensation (most obvious in the opening subplot-why is Ed wearing that shiny helmet?). My other major gripe is the fan service. A little fan service is OK, but this is ridiculous. All of the popular characters from the anime had cameos, regardless of whether or not they offered any significant contribution to the story. Rather, they are just dropped in for a couple of scenes, did their trademark thing, and left. This wouldn't be nearly so bad except for the fact that important scenes were probably sacrificed so old favorites could have a minute of screen time.That said, the movie is still entertaining. A lot of people disliked the ending, and while I don't think it was amazing, I believe it was consistent with the anime. My final recommendation: if you know nothing of FMA, watch the anime (which is far superior to the movie). If you've seen all 51 episodes, the movie is definitely worth watching, if for no other reason than that it significantly progresses the story.

jimboododude This movie came as a huge disappointment. The anime series ended with a relatively stupid plot twist and the rushed introduction of a pretty lame villain, but I expected Shamballa to tie up all the loose ends. Unfortunately, it didn't. It added more plot holes than it resolved, and confused more than it clarified. The animation and voice acting were great, but with an idiotic plot, dull setting (most of the movie doesn't even take place in dull WWII Earth rather than the Alchemy world), and disappointing ending (Ed is useless for the rest of his days in a world with no alchemy, and he ditches Winry?), it was altogether pretty lackluster. Do yourself a favor-- disregard the last half of the anime as well as this movie, and read the manga.