Review of Death Note (2017) by Abdullah E — 26 Aug 2017

It is better to go watch or read a random creepy-pasta on the internet about a Death Note rather than watching this excuse of a movie that they made.

It is better to go and read an edgy emo fan-fiction about Death Note rather than watching this movie.

Netflix really fucked up Americanized/whitewashed the hell out of this. They just bought the Franchise name of "Death Note" and went and messed it up.

They took out everything that made Death Note unique. The philosophy behind what Justice means and how different people interpolate Justice and the conflicts of being righteous in your own point of view and how others see it.

Moreover, they took out everything that made it into a smart detective story and just dumb it down to saying L is super smart and he deduce stuff but with no actually explanation on how or what or why he came to those deduction conclusions. He just does...

Don't even get me started on Light and how ridiculous he was portrayed. Light (in the original material) is supposed to be super smart and his sense of justice is super strong that you might call it being an extremist. but of-course, the movie dumb it down and portrayed him as being an edge-lord teenager who think he is god cause he got a powerful tool which is the Death Note. And he tries to get some action from a crush he has in High School by immediately showing her the Death Note just cause he is a thirsty teenager... and it works... sigh... The Light (in the original material) is supposed to be manipulative and uses Mia (who has a crush on him and reversed in the movie) to his advantage, he abuses her to get what he wants and goes to the extreme of breaking her for his justice. Also he is supposed to be a force to not be messed up with even without his Death Note because of how smart he is. Furthermore, Light in this movie just ignore the rules of the book and doesn't even read or understand them unlike how in the original material the rules were very important and Light used them for his advantage.

Lastly, Ryuk... I got to admit, the CGI was really good and I did enjoy Willem Dafoe portraying him, it fits him really good. However, we cant ignore that they simply did not explain why Ryuk was doing what he was doing and he was just "bored" with no hidden agenda. Just because he was a death god...

I personally was NOT a big fan of Death Note anime nor manga and thought it was an okay entry-level anime/manga to this genre. But still, this Netflix movie made the same mistakes Dragonball Evolution did.

I would recommend watching the original live-action Death Note Japanese movies because they are much more true to the story and is more enjoyable than what Netflix did.

1 Star for Ryuk CGI only...