Death Note's Swan Song

Upon hearing of a movie adaption in the works for the anime Death Note, I was very excited. The show was a guilty pleasure of mine. The show is on Netflix, and I binged the two seasons in a matter of days. This excitement waned over the first five minutes of actually watching the movie. To my disappointment, it has been vulgarly whitewashed. Japan has become USA and the protagonist Light Yagami has magically turned into Light Turner, seemingly solely to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Similarly, the plot has been dumbed down into a typical American teen flick, complete with an unnecessary prom scene. In the first five minutes we see that Light is a quirky high school outcast who goes to school with even more cliched and unrealistic jock archetypes who beat people up on sight. Light likes the cool cheerleader who, despite her good heart, belongs to the popular crowd and has a jock boyfriend. I think we all see where this is going. While there are quite a few stand out hits in Netflix’s portfolio, this paint by the numbers approach is the sad truth of more and more Netflix Originals. I think we would all like to forget the recent Netflix Adam Sandler movies.

As a fan of the anime, there is plenty not to like. There is a shoehorned romance, but that’s to be expected. Unfortunately, all elements of plot seem shoehorned. The most interesting aspect of the show was Light’s gradual descent into a manipulative psychopath on a power trip. It was interesting to find oneself rooting for a protagonist who is inarguably bad. However, this is removed from the movie. To appeal to traditional values, he renounces the Death Note and becomes an even more morally just hero. This takes the interesting plot and turns it into something mundane, expected. It’s frustrating how untrue the movie is to the source material. However, it’s not just bad by comparison; the Death Note movie is bad on its own.

I’m finding it difficult to analyze deeply a movie that appears to have no depth. Every scene was so on the nose in its purpose, an implicit meaning would have to be conjured. All backstory is told, not shown, through unrealistic exposition. Frequently, two characters talk to one another in ways that they never would for the benefit of the audience’s knowledge. This takes away all suspension of disbelief. It feels like I was being told to ignore the man behind the curtain, but the curtain was thin and transparent, and the man squealed, “look at me!” Constantly I was reminded that I was watching a movie. The acting was poor, and the writing was atrocious. Interestingly enough, it seemed like more plot movement happened in montages than anything else. There was constant cursing for no discernible reason, coupled with a completely unnecessary amount of gore. I was expecting a clever thriller and I got mindless decapitations (ha!) in the style of Final Destination. I would advise fans to stay away, and for would-be fans: watch the show.