Review of Death Note (2017) by Soulreaper13 — 29 Jun 2020
Wow, wtf happened with this movie? Death Note is one of the greatest anime/manga of all time, so why was such a terrible live-action version ever green-lit? I knew this film was an epic fail the moment that Light screamed like a little girl at the sight of Ryuk.
That scene was both depressingly painful and unintentionally hilarious to watch. Almost EVERY decision Light and L make in this movie are completely out of character from their anime counterparts and stupid beyond reason.
Mia is essentially the exact opposite of her original version, instead of a light-hearted goth girl we get a psychotic cheerleader, ugh. The characters, the style, the plot, the intensity of the cat-and-mouse game, basically everything that made the anime so great is ruined in this film.
Some of the death scenes are absurdly over-the-top as if the director just binge-watched the entire Final Destination series and thought the same formula would work here. Unfortunately Death Note is even worse than those films.
The 80's music only makes it feel even cheesier, as they try to mimic Donnie Darko as well and still end up with a trashy teen horror flick. The movie even breaks the very rules of the Death Note itself.
This isn't only a bad anime adaptation, it's just a bad movie period. Cringy dialogue, lame action set-pieces, terrible movie logic, and worst of all Ryuk is hardly even in it! Willem Dafoe is actually a good choice for Ryuk but he's portrayed as some kind of maniacal puppet-master, which is NOT what he ever was in the show.
Do yourself a favor and skip this hot mess.
This review of Death Note (2017) was written by Soulreaper13 on 29 Jun 2020.
Death Note has generally received negative reviews.
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