Directed by: Adam Wingard
Written by: Charley Parlapanides, Vlas Parlapnides, Jeremy Slater
Starring: Nat Wolff, Lakeith Stanfield, Margaret Qualley
IMDb Link
I have no problem with films adapting stories from other media, and I am not bothered by changes necessary to compress a story in to a shorter time frame. The first season of the Death Note anime series was about twelve hours long, so it's unreasonable to expect the movie to have anywhere near the same nuance in just over an hour and a half. When I say that Death Note (2017) is a bad adaptation, it's not because it did things differently from the anime.
Death Note (2017) is a bad adaptation because it does so much to separate its own plot and characters from the series', but winds up pigeonholing itself in to some of the same goals. Light Yagami is a charismatic and popular golden boy of a student, positively above reproach, and the last person you would expect to be a complete sociopath with a God Complex. Light Turner is an awkward social outcast, known to be lacking in morality, and motivated by little more than revenge and the brain between his legs. Light Yagami is stronger and smarter than everyone around him, which leads him to make rash decisions when someone gets the better of him, Light Turner is a character so weak and without agency he can seemingly be manipulated by everyone around him, and makes stupid decisions because he's a horny teenager. Both characters can work, but the things that motivate their actions shouldn't bring them to the same conclusion. Death Note (2017) starts with a completely different Light in a completely different city, but rather than continue the idea of using the Death Note for personal vendetta that the film started on, it skips straight to same "God of the new world" plot from the anime, despite the film essentially turning Light in to a hostage of his own circumstance. The movie's first act seems to have a different idea brewing, but then throws it out the window in favour of being more like its source material, while failing at that also. The third act twist would have been brilliant, had it actually fit with the character that had been built up, but Light Turner's final move is so much smarter than everything else he's done in the movie up to that point that it comes off as cheap. That said, thankfully it's not nearly The Last Airbender or Dragonball: Evolution.
Despite being a bad adaptation, Death Note (2017) actually had its own thing going for it before the movie effectively kicked itself in the head. As I said, the idea of the owner of the Death Note being weak and easily manipulated by fear and sex is an interesting idea; even though it takes away the agency of his character, it can be used to make him more sympathetic in a sad sort of way, as he slowly devolves in to the fantasy equivalent of the school-shooter archetype, driven by anger and petty revenge and regret from bad decisions. The film plays in to this in a weirdly effective way as well; Light is made to look such a fearful weakling that it's truly comical, and as it contrasts with Ryuk's (played brilliantly by Willem Dafoe) menacing presence and Mia's (Qualley) forcefulness, there could've been potential for a really good story involving the Death Note, but with a much smaller scale. However, after spending a long time establishing the characters and and laying foundation for a more personal conflict, the movie forces Light to breeze past what would have been the natural progression of his character to attempting godhood. Here most of what the movie had going for it takes a downturn, as we're quickly introduced to L (Stanfield), and I do mean quickly. The film manages to smash its way through several scenes of L's detective work without sparing a second: The most egregious case involves L having Light followed and getting called out on it in literally ten seconds of screen time. The film so suddenly attempts to jam in the L story that it's almost easy to forget how haphazardly the romantic subplot between Light and Mia came about, which quite literally involves Light being in the gym with the Death Note for some reason, getting approached by Mia, avoiding showing her the Death Note, then going out of his way to show it to her and how it works. The film almost had its own interesting take, but forced its way back to resembling the original story, when it was already too late and it didn't have to.
Outside of the plot and characters taking an unexpected and unsatisfying turn, there's a few smaller things that stood out to me, minor inconsistencies in plot and technical weaknesses that I quickly want to list here because they're still rattling around in my brain. One such plot inconsistency that's demonstrative of a lot of them is a scene wherein Ryuk threatens Light with the fact that anyone who'e ever tried to get Ryuk's name in to the Death Note has never written more than two letters, despite the fact that Light learns Ryuk's name because someone had it written down in the notebook. The only technical aspect that bothered me was the sound mixing: a lot of the time, dialogue was obscured by ambiance such as rain. These little factors don't compare much to the issues I have with the direction in which they took the plot and characters, but they certainly don't help with the experience, and occur often enough to be noticeable.
The Verdict: Death Note is too little of anything to be really effective: not enough like the series to be a homage, not enough of its own film with its own story ideas to avoid comparison. While standouts such as the film's oddly hilarious comedic moments and Willem Dafoe's excellent performance as Ryuk keep this from being a colossal waste, the film doesn't have enough going for it to be more than a Final Destination movie with a terrible romance. This isn't a problem if you're in to those sorts of movies, and if you enjoy them, then more power to you, but I found it so disappointing, especially since I've seen better from Wingard.
Rating: 4/10
Published August 26th, 2017
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