Netflix Death Note Review
A review of the live action version of the famous Manga/Anime Death note. Beware Spoilers ahead
The original
Netflix made a Netflix original live action movie based on the famous Manga/Anime Death note. In the original Death note a Shinigami (Death God, think grim reaper) grows bored and decides to give his Death note to a mere mortal. If a person's name is written in the Death note (and you think of his face) this person will die. You can even detail the way that the person should die and when.
The boy who gets his hands on the is Yagami Light and when he discovers the powers of the Death note he takes it on himself to rid the world of criminality by killing those who "deserve" it. Light uses the pseudonym "Kira" as he executes criminals.
His killing spree doesn't go unnoticed and soon a super detective known as "L" starts investigating Kira.
What envelops is a cat and mouse game between the brilliant teen Light and the genius L.
The Differences
There are a couple of differences between the anime and the Netflix version.
First of all the Netflix version of Death Note is an american live action movie while the Japanese Anime is a 37 part series.
The Anime takes place in Japan while the Netflix version takes place in Seattle, USA.
These differences have quite an impact on the Netflix movie because they had to work 37 episodes of Anime into one movie and also had to take the cultural differences into account.
The Netflix story
Our main character is called Light Turner who gets into possession of the Death note after a rather hefty thunderstorm. No explanation is given why he was selected for this rather ominous task. The Shinigami Ryuk soon approaches Light and tells him that if he doesn't want anything to do with the Death Note that he should leave it alone for 7 days and after that Ryuk will find a new owner.
Light waists no time informing his love interest Misa about the Death note and together they come up with the plan to rid the world of criminals and bullies making it a better place for everyone (how noble, don't ya think?).
"L" starts investigating Kira as people start to see Kira as some kind of God because no-one can explain the deaths of the criminals that are claimed by Kira. L's opinion is that Kira has no right killing criminals and might be very dangerous. L is proven right when Kira targets FBI agents who are in the way of Kira's exploits.
From this moment on L start unraveling Kira's true identity and confronts Light and even Light's father with his suspicions but Light manages to misdirect L's accusations.
Light is then double crossed by his girlfriend who wants to protect him and also wants the Death not for herself. Light is not easily tricked however and in a desperate move where he (for the first time in the movie) makes use of the complicated rules of the Death note, he gets one up one his girlfriend and walks away scott free.
The Good
not much (sorry to be so blunt), the only highlight in my opinion was the portrayal of Ryuk, The Shinigami (Death God)
The Bad
I had high hopes because Netflix has produced some high quality movies and series, but reducing the 37 part storyline to one movie turned out to be too difficult even for Netflix. A lot of the original storyline was left out, this is understandable but the movie kind of rushed towards the end. The original Death note slowly builds up to the final battle between L and Kira and we get to know these two characters as masterminds at their own game. It's like watching two geniuses play a game of chess. Never in this movie did we get a display of the mental prowess of either L or Light.
It had been better if Netflix had ditched the Movie and had gone for a 37- episode show (or maybe 2 seasons) instead.
The Ugly
Now it's time to get really brutal. I am not even going to touch the racial casting. It's my opinion that a movie like this (fantasy) can be good whatever the race of the actors is.
What I found totally wrong with this movie is the role of Misa. Almost as soon as Light finds out about the Death note he tells Misa (who he doesn't know that well at that point) about the fact that he can kill people by writing their name in the book.
Misa for some reason is totally intrigued by this news and decides to hook up with Light in his efforts to rid the world of criminals.
Why would Light take a chance by telling his love interest about Death note? Light is supposed to be a loner with a high IQ and this doesn't sound like something Light would do. Of course as soon as Misa gets a chance she tries to double cross him (big surprise!).
Think about it when you possess a book that can decide who lives or dies would you first instinct be to share this information with the girl you have a crush on? It makes Light look more like a brainless horny teenager instead of the selfish sociopath he really is supposed to be.
Final Verdict
Netflix kind of messed this one up, the pacing of the movie is just wrong. It is also unclear who this movie is meant for? People who have never seen the anime will not understand half of what's going on and will be left with a lot of questions and fans of the Manga/Anime will not like the "butchering" of their favorite characters.
There is nothing wrong with mixing things up, Marvel showed us with Civil War (based on the comic book series' crossover) that it is possible to divert from the original material and still produce a good movie.
If you have never seen Death note, my advise is to go and watch the brilliant Anime instead (with subs of course). This movie does not even come close to the tension and complex storyline of the original.
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Thank you for this. I feel that they did completely butcher the characters in this and the only redeeming one was Ryuk. Being a fan of the Anime, Manga and the 2 part Japanese live action film I found this retelling to be brutal. I actually wasnt able to finish it in one sitting just because of the portrayals of the main characters. I didn't get to see the brilliance of Light that I would have expected or the calm composure of L. The whole movie just didn't do the series any justice at all in my personal opinion.
I totally agree, I must say that I expected more from Netflix. They have produced some great shows and movies but this was not good at all. Ryuk was nice and sinister (although less cheeky). Maybe if they had tried making a 2 season show things would have been better. I mean these guys produced the OVA, Strange things, House of cards, sense8 so they know how to make quality television. It seems like a rush job combined with a lot of bad decisions.
I completely agree with you there. When I heard that Netflix was doing it I expected it to be a decent movie at the very least. I know they had to cut a lot to fit it into a movie. I just feel that they could have done a much better job portraying the characters. Lights intelligence and L's calm and cool composure are what made them great. It definitely would have been great if they did it in 2 parts because it was very rushed.
cool
Thank you, what part did you like?
I heard about a new movie now 2017 that is based on the Death note. I have seen a few episodes of the series Death note and liked it enough to see the movie when it comes out.
It was a friend who recommended it to me.
Made jokes back and forward for a while.
Great post. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, @saffisara. As I said in my post the Movie does not compare to the Anime. The anime starts slow but has an excellent build up towards the ending. The movie is kinda all over the place.
My pleasure @xervantes 😊
Yes it's sad that it's almost like that every time they try to make a movie from a serie it just doesn't ad up. I first thought the serie was bad until he met the Death God and then it changed for the better 😆 and it continued to get better. That's what they should make you feel like in the movie as well.
I want to see the movie but I guess after seeing the animation version it will be a disappointment.
Thank you for your tip and heads up 😊
Have a great day. Following you
I was hoping that someone will write a review of this movie! Thank you!!! I could only watch for about 30 minutes. It was bad really bad.
Hi @djynn, I watched the whole thing, maybe I shouldn't have but I was willing to give it a chance. Sadly things only got worse.
I couldn't stand to watch Japanese live action serise of Death note either... someone have to do a better job if they want to make anime into live action. Well, it's hard to make anime fan happy though but this movie was very disappointing. Have you heard about One Piece going live action serise in Hollywood? This will be very interesting.
Yeah for some reason, it is hard to make decent live action Anime movies. But Hollywood also had issues with making movies based on comic books until they got it right with Iron Man. So I am still hoping. I hadn't heard about One Piece yet, talk about a difficult task. One piece seems to me very difficult to turn into a live action series. Bleach or Naruto would have been a better choice.
They need to find the actor with stretch body lol :)
yeah it was pretty bad. the pace was bad, the story was not interesting and was missing a lot of the mind games and interesting parts of the actual story. they somehow manged to make me dislike L who is one of my all time favourite anime characters. they constantly had to remind us about the fact that light was clever by saying "he's a very intelligent guy" and so on. also i feel like Light was missing his god complex which in my opinion was one of the most interesting parts about him as a character
i was honestly very bummed out by all of this, i had really hoped it would be good -_-
anyways good job on the post it is nicely written and brings up a lot of the important points :)
Thanks, I was also very disappointed. You summarized all the faults of the movie in one comment :)
Hah yeah i came prepared XD i actually wrote a rewiew on it too, right after wacthing the movie. I've posted it on another site than steemit though