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Joined by his girlfriend Mia (Margaret Qualley), Light sets out to punish the wicked and bring a new era of justice to the world as Kira, all while being hunted by the enigmatic detective L (Lakeith Stanfield).Īnd that broad description is about as close as the film actually gets to the source material, as it makes a number of specific changes that sap a great deal of life and excitement from the story. The notebook allows the user to kill whoever’s name they write in its pages, as long as they can also envision the person’s face. This particular Death Note belongs to Ryuk (Willem DaFoe), a troublemaking death god that likes to make trouble in the human world. Death Note is a film tailored to let you down whether you know about a death god’s obsession with apples or not.įor the uninformed, Death Note is the story of a teenager named Light (Nat Wolff) who just so happens to find a death god’s instrument for killing humans. While I’m going to compare it to the original manga a lot in this review, being a fan insulted by the changes and liberties this film takes with the source material is not required to see the flaws in this telling of the tale. Rather than relying on amplifying typical genre conventions, Wingard methodically lays the foundation to set up this particular Death Note adaptation for a potential sequel, but the outcome is more deliberate than inspired.Let’s be clear upfront: Death Note is a terrible film, no qualifications necessary. Even so, Death Note is a far sight tamer than Wingard’s typical horror fare, lacking either the manic terror of You’re Next or the deadly irony of The Guest, for instance. The film’s frequent violence, blood and gore would surely earn an R rating in the U.S., but Netflix doesn’t need to worry about that with a streaming release (the theatrical version will go out unrated). Qualley’s Mia, on the other hand, is very clearly delineated, and the actress seizes the role with enthusiasm, squeezing as much disruptive unpredictability as possible into a disappointingly truncated arc. Stanfield, whose L character wears a black turtleneck covering the lower half of his face to conceal his identity for two-thirds of the movie, impresses as more self-conscious than mysterious, never quite developing a three-dimensional identity. In a role far removed from his performances in YA titles like ? Paper Towns and ? The Fault in Our Stars?, Wolff’s Light Turner, despite being saddled with an cringingly obvious name, evinces a sympathetic degree of moral confusion once he begins to understand the frightening power of the Death Note. The potentially problematic Ryuk character succeeds largely due to clever casting, with Dafoe supplying layers of sardonic humor and nerve-rattling cackles to punctuate his most emphatic line readings. When L takes the hunt to Seattle, recruiting James for his investigative team, Light suddenly realizes that his anonymity may not be assured, just as Ryuk and Mia push him to step up his vigilante campaign. The Japanese authorities recruit the American teen super-sleuth known only as “L” ( Lakeith Stanfield) to track down Kira and bring him to justice. With the death count topping 400, the mysterious Kira becomes a worldwide phenomenon, celebrated for ridding the world of unrepentant criminals, while at the same time topping law-enforcement’s most-wanted list. In order to conceal his identity, he adopts the pseudonym Kira, a Japanese approximation of “killer.” Light’s secretiveness surrounding the book attracts the attention of badass cheerleader Mia (Margaret Qualley), who eagerly goads Light into claiming more victims after she effortlessly seduces him.īox Office: Hollywood Faces August Death March and a Bummer Summer
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Ryuk encourages Light to test the Death Note’s power, and soon he’s targeting terrorists and criminals worldwide for elimination. Further elucidation of the book’s power is provided by Ryuk ( Willem Dafoe), an 8-foot-tall, porcupine-spined shinigami who controls the Death Note and appears to Light every time he opens it up, while remaining invisible to anyone else. Inscriptions in the book, titled Death Note, explain that writing somebody’s name on the ancient parchment pages and imagining their face will result in their almost instantaneous death. It’s not until a mysterious leather-bound antique notebook literally falls from the sky at his feet that he begins to gain the upper hand. Brainy loner Light Turner (Nat Wolff) can’t seem to catch a break: Between beatdowns by the school bullies and stern lectures from his widowed Seattle police detective dad James (Shea Whigham), he’s always on the defensive.