Rating: 2/5 stars
It is a terrible film, if you wanted to know. The latest from Adam Wingard (“Blair Witch”) puts us in the cat and mouse game between two “geniuses” (perhaps that is too strong of a term to apply as far as this film is concerned), struggling as the power of a supernatural notebook spirals out of control.
Based on the Japanese manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata comes “Death Note,” a movie similar in name and characters, but not much else. For those who do not know, the Death Note is a lethal weapon and whoever’s name is written in the book will die.
The basic premise of the film pits a high schooler, Light Turner, against the world as he uses the notebook to kill those he deems evil, or immoral. Fans of the original series are likely to be disappointed with the new film, but newcomers may be intrigued. For the anime-oriented crowd: Wingard’s “Death Note” takes little inspiration from the original source material.
Although an ambitious departure from the storyline, this Death Note fails on many fronts, choosing to devolve from the manga’s psychological thriller theme to a melodrama between Light Turner (Nat Wolff, “Home Again,”) Mia Sutton (Margaret Qualley, “The Leftovers,”) this film’s version of Misa Amane (Margaret Qualley), and L (Lakeith Stanfield, “Atlanta”) a detective that cannot keep his cool, despite originally being cool.
The comparisons between the Japanese manga and the movie are more than apparent here, but it is difficult to give “Death Note” proper marks when most of its content was derived from existing material. In what could have been a bout of laziness, Wingard decided to adapt the majority Japanese cast into an American setting.
It would have been fine if executed correctly, but with the “Death Note” itself being a concept that can be adapted into many genres, it is hard to ignore the lack of creativity in Wingard’s adaption. Defenders of “Death Note” will cite its length, being a mere hour and 30 minutes, as the prime culprit for most of these unfortunate changes, and they’d be somewhat correct. For comparison’s sake, the manga had 108 chapters to flesh out the story and cast.
The anime series had 37, 20- minute episodes. While it was nearly impossible to replicate Ohba’s story down to minute detail, Wingard’s “Death Note” falls flat in what is perhaps the most disappointing turnout of all. Light
Turner is more or less portrayed as a victim of his actions and a character that Wingard feels with whom we should emphasize with. Turner is not driven necessarily to do anything as his Japanese counterpart, but rather decides to use the Death Note to police the world because he believes such action to be the right thing to do.
Viewers may call him a good character on good moral standing, instead he is actually pretty boring. Light Yagami, aforementioned genius, conducted justice on his own terms as Kira, killing whoever got in his way to becoming a (literal) God. On the psychological front, Yagami moved his supporters and struck fear in his oppressors – all to satisfy his God complex and purge the world into a modern state of totalitarianism. Basically, Wingard’s “Death Note” tries to be something different but all it provides is a sleepy experience.
Photo: Netflix via YouTube.com
