Review of Death Note (2017) by Joel J — 21 Sep 2017

Death Note failed to capture many of the elements that made the original manga and anime material popular. Nat Wolff's Light Turner isn't the brilliant sociopath anti-hero you can root for, instead he's just an annoying high-schooler.

Somehow LaKeith Stanfeild's L has all the answers, but we never see him figure anything out, he spends a majority of the movie sniveling when bad things happen, and he makes the smart choice to REMOVE HIS MASK TO KIRA rendering its use utterly pointless.

Margaret Qualley's Mia is just some crazy girlfriend whose backstory isn't explained at all; does she even have a family or any motivations to kill? Many serious plot points are reduced to moments of bickering, like Mia trying to write Light's dad's name in the Death Note, or the final conversation in the ferris wheel.

Little explanation is given for the appearance of an 8-foot demon, unless you're already familiar with the source material. The constant use of dutch angles made everything seem silly. The final nail in the coffin for this movie was the unnecessary robbery of roles for asian actors.

There was really no reason L couldn't have been an asian character, he was literally speaking Japanese in part of the movie. This film is a shame.