Review of Death Note (2017) by Dauntless07 — 24 Aug 2017

It's worth a watch, but its logical inconsistencies may turn off fans of the original. It's not The Last Airbender or Dragonball Evolution levels of bad, but it does dumb down some of its source material to fit the 101 minute running time.

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Part of the original's strength was that, although supernatural elements existed, there were clearly defined rules, and every move the leads took was intelligently calculated. These rules are changed in this adaptation somewhat, most notably, a specified cause of death now needs only to be "physically possible." By that logic, why doesn't Light just make one of his victims draw an exact copy of L's face and name? For some reason, this never occurs to Light, probably because he too has been dumbed down. What made him so interesting in the series, in addition to possessing a genius level intellect, was that he was a model student; not someone you'd suspect of serial murder. Here, they made him into a troublemaker from the start, and he makes idiotic mistakes like openly reading and talking about the notebook in public places. Heart attack is not the default cause of death as in the anime, resulting in an unnecessarily gory film. Misa wasn't a strong character in the source material, and I have no idea why they tried to make her a pseudo Lady Macbeth here. It's almost as if she's making Light do these things, rather than focusing on his descent to evil.

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The setting change didn't bother me, because the story of Death Note could have happened anywhere. The characters, however, are often so different from the originals that I wonder why they bothered keeping their names. The real stars of the film are William Dafoe as Ryuk, (he's perfect in anything sinister to cartoony levels,) and Keith Stanfield as L, (he captures the air of his source character remarkably well.) The real problem is the short run time, which forces the plot to move at breakneck pace, and does not allow for the methodic intellectual chess game between Light and L. There's enough here to make me believe the actors could have made this shine through, but not with 1 hour 40 minutes. Instead of sequel baiting, perhaps more focus should have been placed on creating a better film.

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All that said, I was still able to enjoy myself watching this film, and that's because the concept is really good. What happens when a teenager is given the power to kill? At the very least, we get an answer to that question when the power falls to a cringy punk. As you might expect by the run time, it starts going bad for him pretty fast. The effects were decent, though more practical effects for Ryuk would have been appreciated. The music was hit or miss. I think if they slapped another hour on to really develop these characters and the plot, or cut Mia's character entirely, we could have had a better film, but as is, it's passable. Average.