kanna-chan's cafe

Hey guys, kanna here. Well, I'm still packing for move in, which is soon (I still can't believe summer is almost over), but I made time to write this review for you guys. Yay!

*applause*

It's time for the review everyone's been waiting for, so let's get to it! Here it is: Netflix's Death Note!

Ok, so the movie has a semi-decent cast. Nat Wolff as Light Yagami (I'm NOT calling him Light Turner), CGI voiced by Willem Dafoe as Ryuk (there was some other guy who played Ryuk in costume while Willem Dafoe provided voice work and performance capture for the facial elements), that guy from Get Out as L (I FINALLY remembered his name! It's Keith Stanfield), and a bunch of other people I've never heard of. Masi Oka, that jerk who made that remark about "perfect English," is in this, too.

*sigh*

I'm in for a treat, aren't I? Mr. Oka, you have yet to redeem yourself. I don't care that the creators of the source material praised this; I'm here to form my own opinion. I mean, it can't be as bad as both parts of the live action adaptation of Attack on Titan, right?

RIGHT?

RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

ONE SCREENING LATER

Holy. Fricking. Frick. I...can't...even...

*deep breath*

THIS MOVIE SUCKS!

Ok. Allow me to elaborate. I couldn't get through this movie in one sitting, so after the first twenty or so minutes of torture (the things I do for you guys), I decided to walk away, get some shopping therapy (which took longer than I would have liked), and come back to it. And guess what? IT WAS STILL TORTURE.

Allow me to elaborate a little bit more. If you'll recall, I reviewed the Death Note anime about a year ago and praised it. It was a fantastic anime with great, complex characters and an interesting premise. Sure, it had its downsides, but what anime doesn't (even if it gets 5/5 or 10/10)?

So, let's not waste any time (which I would actually be quite content with, but I feel I owe it to you guys to give this "movie" a proper review). Let's dive right into Netflix's Death Note.

The movie opens up with a high school in what I think is Seattle, and already, the soundtrack is doing nothing for me. They're using a song I don't know by a band I've never heard of (I think they're Australian). But more on the bad music later.

We see our protagonist, Light Yagami--sorry, Light Turner--in the middle of a rainstorm as he picks up a book marked "Death Note." After a scene with high school bully Kenny and our introduction of cheerleader Mia Sutton (the movie's version of Misa Amane), we cut to the principal, where we learn that Light is a genius who hates everything evil and that his mom died. The principal puts Light in detention for trying to break up a fight between Kenny and Mia.

While in detention, the teacher steps out for a while and Light opens up the Death Note. He starts to read the rules. And, I'm not going to lie: while Nat Wolff doesn't look great as a blonde, the years certainly did treat him well. He's only a couple weeks older than I am, but his voice got REALLY deep. It sound pretty good. You can tell he went through some major changes after Naked Brothers Band.

Anyway, as Light is reading the rules of the notebook, the lights flicker out and he hears something break. He goes to investigate and we get our first look at Ryuk. This is probably my favorite part of the movie, because Light screams like a little girl at the sight of Ryuk and falls down. Ryuk practically destroys the detention room (along with trying to kill Light) and Light is screaming like a little girl the entire time. It's actually kind of funny.

Light tries to convince himself it's all a dream, but Willem Dafoe's AMAZING voice acting shines through with the lines, "Oh, yes. A dream. I like that. Dreams are places you can have fun, right? It's all in your mind, so why not enjoy it?" Ryuk points to Kenny and another kid bullying a girl outside before he continues, "Now we could, in this 'dream' of yours, take care of a situation like this.We just put Kenny's name down and see what happens."

Light writes down Kenny's name, and it's here where I feel the writing for Nat goes downhill. Why? Well, we get a pretty crappy joke (at least, I think that's what it was) about Light not having a pen. However, the writing for Willem Dafoe continues to shine, as Ryuk says, "Good. Now, as long as we're playing, let's do it right. There's no need to stop at 'who.'" Light asks what else there is, and Ryuk explains that there needs to be a "how." Light writes down "decapitation" as the cause of death, and Ryuk says that that's not bad for a beginner. Ryuk then gets Light to look outside and watch the action unfold. I won't go into detail about Kenny's death because he wasn't that important of a character and his death was pretty bloody.

Light screams like a little girl (okay, now that's getting old...it was fun the first or second time, but now it's getting old) and falls backwards. Ryuk then explains that he needs to "separate the wheat from the chaff," and that if Light leaves the Death Note alone for seven days, Ryuk will find it a new home. Ryuk tells Light that if what just happened was possible to imagine what else he could do with the Death Note. The lights flicker back on and Ryuk vanishes.

We then cut to Light's home, where we meet Light's dad, James Turner, a cop. There's a pretty bad storm going on, causing things in the house to rattle and shake. And...the scene here really isn't that great. It just shows how Light's dad isn't really the best dad out there and how Light thinks his dad is doing a pretty bad job at being a cop.

Light goes to his room and reads rules 64 and 95 of the Death Note before he asks about the number of rules. I'm going to mention the same thing I did in my review of the anime: this notebook has more rules on how to kill a person than there are instructions on how to make instant ramen!

Back to the story. Light flips through the pages of the Death Note before coming across something interesting in the margins of one of the pages: "Don't trust Ryuk (he pronounces it Rye-ick). He is not your pet, he is not your friend." The lights in Light's room go out and the door to his room creaks open (I guess this is an attempt to scare us...it doesn't really work), and Light thinks that Ryuk is behind it.

Sure enough, Ryuk is in Light's room, and corrects Light on the pronunciation of his name (thank G-D). The writing for Nat continues to go downhill as Light asks more questions, while the writing for Willem Dafoe continues to freaking shine. So far, aside from the bad writing for Nat, the whitewashing and Americanization of everyone's names (except for Watari, but we'll get to him later), this movie is actually doing a pretty good job of following the first few episodes of the anime.

Too bad that's cut short by Light commenting on the size of Ryuk's fingers. Um...unnecessary, much? Anyway, Ryuk says that Rule 28 of the Death Note states that each death must be physically possible. In the words of Ryuk, "No shark attacks while someone's on the toilet." Really? That would have been a redeemable quality for the movie.

Light continues to ask more pointless questions, until he gets an idea. He gets a folder that has several articles on his mom's killer, Antony...something. Ryuk explains that a name and a face is all Light needs to write someone's name in the Death Note. Light writes Antony's name in the Death Note and we actually see the poor guy get killed off.

I'm not going to go through the middle of the movie, because the only semi-relevant thing that happens is that we meet L.

Let's just cut to the end. Honestly, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. My sanity is already ebbing away. I'd ALMOST rather be sitting through Diabolik Lovers (key word being "almost"). G-d help me.

Mia falls to her death from the Seattle Great Ferris Wheel thanks to Ryuk messing with it (also, her name was written in the Death Note). We learned earlier (I forgot to mention this) that a page with someone's name can be burned to cancel the death within 48 hours, but this can only be done once. Light and the Death Note fall into the water, and the page with Light's name on it falls in a burn barrel. The page is burned, Light is recovered, but he is in a coma. When he wakes up, his dad realizes that Light was Kira all along (oh yeah, they went with that Japanese/English wordplay). Ryuk comments on how interesting humans are, and the credits roll.

So...out of 10: 0/10

Why: Look, I tried to go into this with an open mind. I really did. But aside from all the whitewashing, Americanization, bad writing, bad direction, bad music, bad...pretty much everything, the only good thing was Willem Dafoe's performance as Ryuk.

Nat's acting is passable, at best. It was great seeing him try to act as a complex character like Light Yagami, but they key word in that is "try." Nat definitely changed and matured quite a bit. Whether that's for the better remains to be seen.

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata (the creators of Death Note) have praised the film. What were they on? Were they drunk or high or something when watching this? Because that might be the only way someone could get through this "movie" and actually like it. I don't drink or get high, though, so I could be wrong about that.

All in all, if you're a fan of Death Note, DON'T WATCH THIS! If you want to get into Death Note, watch the anime instead of this "movie." I can guarantee it will be 10 times better than this piece of crap.

The soundtrack did nothing for me. I have...no words, other than it was really, really bad.

Adam Winguard, the director of this "movie" said that Netflix has wanted to make at least two films if enough people watched this. Winguard said, "There are definitely lots of places to go, and we know generally where we would take it. Hopefully people will watch it and Netflix will order a sequel. They definitely are ready to. They just need people to watch it." Oh, Adam...if only you knew how badly we don't want a sequel...

Well, that's my review. This was torture to watch, so I'll be taking a break from Anime Mondays for a week or two. Sorry, guys. ~k