Review of Death Note (2017) by Dannychryst — 25 Nov 2018

Absolute garbage. I do appreciate that they tried to take many ideas from the animé. They get the basic concepts correct, but the changes to the plot of the source material are unforgivable. Some of the changes were made to create completely unnecessary plot twists which were vastly different from the animé, and ended up being your standard horror clichés. Ryuk was also a lot different from the animé and manga despite being the single element that remained mostly intact. In the animé he acted like he didn't care about what happened with the Death Note, and that made him even more likable as a character. In this film he's portrayed as having sinister urges for how he uses the Death Note, as if he was actually a demon or some kind of evil entity. Ryuk seemed far more neutral towards everything on the show.

Light acts like an irrational dunce compared to his criminal mastermind version from the show. Misa, or "Mia" in the film, is much more sadistic and conniving than in the animé. Even L has a personality change, but most of his mannerisms remain the same. He too lets his emotions run wild, which is a huge departure from his cold and calculating nature on the show. This is mostly the result of an overly elaborate plot twist that is such a sharp deviation from the source material it makes you wonder if the director even watched the whole series. They also continue to cram in needlessly complicated plot devices that have no place or purpose in a supernatural detective story. On top of that, they keep ripping off various other horror films, and it feels like more of a horror film than a detective story. This is probably their greatest sin of all because it utterly destroys the tone that made the animé so unique to watch. It just becomes another disposable American horror movie which is definitely not what Death Note should have been like.

This was easily the worst live-action adaptation of Death Note, and possibly the worst live-action adaptation of any animé period. I didn't think it could get much worse after Ghost In The Shell, but Netflix had to prove me wrong. Hollywood seriously needs to leave animé alone forever.