I watched anime in the 1990s when it was on the insomniac schedule on Channel 4. My favourite series by far was The Legend of the Four Kings, but I also watched things like Ninja Scroll (who didn't?), Devilman and Urotsudoji... as well as Pokemon and Sailor Moon whenever I babysat my nieces. But other than a fascination with Hellsing Ultimate, I'm woefully out of touch with all the 'new' animes, which is why I'm going into this review of the live-action adaptation of Death Note almost completely blind (I've watched only the very first episode of the anime).
Light Turner is a brilliant-yet-obviously-troubled high school student in Seattle when one day a mysterious notebook quite literally falls into his life. Called the 'Death Note', it contains a mindblowing amount of rules and instructions which, in the end, all boil down to: if you write someone's name in the book while thinking of their face, that person will die. The Death Note was created by a death god named Ryuk, who has given it to Light for the proverbial gits and shiggles and encourages him to use it. At first, Light limits himself to offing the school bully and the man who killed his mother in a hit-and-run and got away with it, but after he lets cheerleader Mia in on his secret, the two decide to start thinking bigger. Creating the persona of 'Kira' to hide behind, they start killing off all the people they feel have escaped justice - killers, crime bosses, terrorists and more. As the general public start to worship 'Lord Kira', a mysterious detective known only as L starts to investigate them, and a cat and mouse game begins between L and Light. And just what is Ryuk getting out of all of this anyway?
So... as I said, all I know of the Death Note anime is one episode, and I know even less of the manga, so I more or less went in blind here. Therefore, much of the controversy and outrage surrounding the film (the "whitewashing" and the apparent mangling of canon characters and story) have gone right over my head and so I won't be commenting on them here. That being said, even if I hadn't known of its anime/manga origins I think I'd have figured it out by the end because the story has a lot of... quirks that I think you'd only see in anime.
Take L, for example. He is almost uniquely of anime origins, just from his origin story alone. An orphan trained from a ridiculously young age to be one of the world's greatest detectives by the Montauk Project, of all things? Don't get me wrong, I found his character fascinating and I really liked him - especially the fact that he was clearly somewhere on the autistic spectrum - but his background is probably not one you'd find in a 'traditional' Western-based story.
Death Note is directed by Adam Wingard, whose praises I've sung once or twice on this blog before, and I have to say that this film is certainly beautifully shot and edited. However, I also think that he tried to fit way too much story into a 1hr 40 film. I would have loved to have seen more interaction between Light and L, for example, as the two of them play off each other brilliantly the few times they do interact, or maybe gotten some more screentime and/or insight into Ryuk's role in all of this (because seriously, that's Willem Defoe you've got doing the mocapping and voice there; you should really utilise him more).
Things start to go a little bit Rube Goldberg towards the end, but it's hardly a dealbreaker (if you've already suspended your disbelief over the existence of a notebook that can kill people, then a series of coincidences won't do you any harm). The film is more of a detective film than a horror, although there are a few moments of gore (and of course there's Ryuk; can't forget him), but as I said, I enjoyed the scenes with L and would have liked to have seen more of him. One thing I wasn't fond of, however, was the ending. I get that cliffhanger endings are sometimes necessary, especially when you're angling for a sequel, but this ending felt too... open-ended. Too vague. It didn't really add anything to what had already happened or pique any more interest than we already had. Maybe if I was a fan of the anime or manga I'd have stronger feelings either way, but as it stands I found Death Note to be an enjoyable enough movie, if a little cluttered and rushed in places.
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