Plot Overview: (Some Spoilers)
The movie begins with an orange haired girl, Julia Crichton, waking up from a dream about the day her family was forcibly taken from her home by soldiers beside her older brother Ashley who is studying their parents' alchemy books. Soon the siblings hear some strange noises and Ashley goes ahead to investigate, but a worried Julia follows to a room where she finds the bodies of her parents hung up and dripping blood. She watches in horror as her brother is attacked and presumably murdered to which she faints.Years later, a criminal breaks free from prison in Amestris, and the Elric brothers Edward and Alphonse join the effort to recapture him. The duo confronts the escapee who proves himself a dangerous opponent able to create ice and lightning from the alchemy circles drawn in blood on the palms on his hands. Despite the Elrics' efforts to capture the criminal, he ends up escaping, and after some investigation with Edward's superior Roy Mustang and his assistant Riza Hawkeye, they learn that the fugitive, Melvin Voyager escaped despite him being weeks away from being released from jail. Among his belongings, they find a newspaper page with a piece cut off, and comparing with an intact copy of the same page, they find that the missing piece is a photo of a young woman named Julia Crichton who was arrested while entering illegally in the remote Table City, set in the border between Amestris and Creta.
Intrigued by the alchemy used by the criminal and his connection with Julia, the Elrics board a train to Table City to investigate further, but the train is attacked by an unknown individual who transforms into a wolf-chimera and takes control of the locomotive. (--via Wikipedia)
From here, the Elric Brothers continue their investigation of Table City to pursue this wolf-chimera and the escaped prisoner as the plot takes the film down the path of discovering and creating a Philosopher Stone.
What This Film Does Right
Much like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, this film features a LOT of action segments, rather than boring viewers with heavy dialogue.
The adventure is centered around mostly the Elric Brothers and contrasting their brotherly bond with the brother-sister dynamic of the Crichton siblings.
Without giving anything away, this is an interesting plot, but does not deter from neither the original FMA nor Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood's own if you have not seen both of those series in their entirety. It is as not as predictable as one would expect from first glance with several swerves before discovering who are the real good guys and bad guys in this adventure.
The film serves as an excellent contrast to reality. While Amestris is vastly inspired by Europe, Table City is influenced by Spain. The viewers, along with the Elric Brothers are exposed to a yet another truth of the world, as there are few happy endings - if any, after a multitude of personal and physical sacrifices to bring our dreams to reality.
Once the Philosopher Stone is brought into the plot, the film finally gives the viewers the possibilities of what the Stone can do from both sides of the coin - from the hands of good and evil.
What This Film Does Not So Well
The official Wikipedia page only had this explanation to ease some of this confusion:
The idea to create a Fullmetal Alchemist movie set during the second anime's storyline came from the series's producers. The movie's original plot was written by Yuichi Shinbo who also came up with the new characters' names. From there, director Kazuya Murata did research on Spain to develop Table City, intended as a contrast to Amestris, which was based on England. Because it was the only time in the series that the main characters traveled to another country, Murata had difficulties concluding it, wondering if it would have an impact on the canonical storyline. Therefore, the story was set during the time Edward realized Alphonse's human body existed somewhere, with the logic that knowledge would encourage him to travel to another area to do research. Hiromu Arakawa was not included as part of the staff but was still looking forward to the film.
The plot centers heavily around the Elric Brothers, of course, but Winry, Roy Mustang, Risa Hawkeye, and Major Armstrong all make minor appearances. Outside of that, we get no love from the many unforgettable supporting cast of the FMA world. Roy Mustang has a VERY minor role in the climatic final battle but after his stellar performance in Fullmetal Alchemist: Conquerer of Shamballa I was expecting a bit more from Central's most charismatic pyromaniac.
My biggest gripe trying to sympathize for the people of Milos was that the film portrayed and pitied them almost identically how the Ishbalians were in the FMA series. The only exception here is that the people of Milos were not as overly attracted to their faith and their people were not almost entirely wiped out by a mass genocide as a result of the military in Amestris. I personally would have liked to see a bit more creativity there on that element of the people of Milos' plight, but the relationship between the Crichton siblings more than made up for those shortcomings.
The Verdict?
Wake up sleepy-head, as this isn't going to be bad news. Any Fullmetal Alchemist fan will definitely find something to love here, but newcomers to this anime should stay away. The film pretty much assumes you know who the Elric Brothers are and wastes little to no time to get into the thick of the plot in this adventure.
The film runs at about two hours, and despite its few shortcomings, this is an enjoyable experience for any Fullmetal Alchemist fan. I give this a 9 out of 10.
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