Netflix's Live-Action 'Death Note' Is Not Atrocious at All. It's Actually Entertaining. I Still Hated It Though.

At first, I initially had no intention of watching the Netflix live-action film remake of Death Note.  I thought it looked awful based on its trailer.  Death Note is one the greatest anime ever made.  It’s an intelligent, unique thriller.  But, per the trailer, the American version looks like generic as crap.  I didn’t want to watch something I just knew I would abhor.  But then, I went, “Okay.  If I’m going to hate this, I have to hate it right.  I should know why I hate it.”  So I watched it.

To be fair, it’s not as terrible as I thought it would be.  It actually entertains.  In fact, if I hadn’t watched the anime, and this was my first encounter with the property, I might have been blown away by Netflix’s Death Note.  But I think this is because the Death Note concept as a whole is so interesting in the first place, that a shallow imitation that only scratches the surface of its true value is going to be adequately effectual to audiences who have no idea of its fullness.  Because, seriously, Netflix’s Death Note fails to even barely reflect how endearing, multi-layered, thought-provoking, and exciting the original anime is.

Coming into this movie, I knew that the only way I could find it watchable is if I didn’t consciously compare it to the anime.  And by “watchable”, I mean tolerably sitting through it without pouncing to strangle its neck (figuratively, of course).  So that I did, treating it as a “re-imagination”, an alternate interpretation, rather than an adaptation of the anime.  That’s how I came to my conclusion in the previous paragraph: it’s entertaining and sufficient, especially to non-anime fans.

But even by itself, it has problems. Prominent of all is that it’s too cramped.  It tries to fit so many things in the plot.   Hence, there are so many tonal shifts, and they transition messily.  The pacing is as bad, though not as incoherent, as those anime films that summarize episodes of a series in a feature length runtime.  In order to push the narrative forward at such swift rate, supposedly smart characters make stupid decisions and important moments are inorganic and underdeveloped.  And with no time to make things marinate for a while, it makes it difficult to care for the story.

Another thing is the dumb plot holes regarding the Death Note rules.  One huge example is the film’s final twist, where it’s revealed that Light actually orchestrated an implausible, complicated series of events by using the Death Note’s power.  At first, this seems to be pretty good writing.  But once you pause to think about it, you would remember that it was established earlier that “each death must be physically possible, so no shark attacks while someone is in the toilet.”  Yet the elaborateness of Light’s scheme is more improbable than shark-attacks-in-the-toilet.  Another one is when Light forced Watari to go on a trip to unearth L’s real name so that he can kill him via Death Note.  Now, if that’s allowed, then why not just command Watari to kill L in a conventional manner?  It’s such an obvious solution that it’s so frustrating.

Also, what’s with the odd choice of 80’s soundtrack?  It doesn’t make sense.  It doesn’t match the context and style of the film.   It’s pretentious and off-putting.

And by being exasperated in my evaluation of the movie for its own worth, my annoyance is fueled to extend my criticism to how inferior it is to the anime.  In relation to this, my biggest gripe is how godawful the characters are.  In the anime, Light and L are calculating, composed, complex, and realized characters engaging in a riveting cat-and-mouse duel of wits.  Their Netflix live-action counterparts, however, are garbage knock-offs.  When Light started screaming like a girl when he first met Ryuk, I just knew I would hate him the entire film.  It only gets worse: one of his motivations for using the Death Note was to impress and win the affection of the hot, popular girl in school.  Ugh.  Meanwhile, I actually liked L at first.  He seemed to be as eccentric, cunning, and mysterious as the anime L, and even performed some of his quirky habits.  But, soon enough, the character became an obnoxious, bossy crybaby.  While anime L is perpetually calm even in the face of impending death, Netflix L snaps and throws tantrums at the first signs of a confrontation.  He was thoroughly irritating that I was actually led to root for Light to kill him.

Indeed, if I had to choose what I hated the most about Netflix’s Death Note, it’s how it butchered in its depiction two of anime’s most fascinating characters.

On the other hand, I liked Netflix Ryuk.  Now, anime Ryuk is superior and fitting, since he’s more of an enabler for Light rather than a manipulator – which Neflix Ryuk is – and even serving as somewhat of a conscience to Light.   Still, Netlfix Ryuk is easily the most praiseworthy thing in this movie.  Thanks to Willem Dafoe’s fantastic performance in all his Green Goblin glory, the reimagination done on the character’s role and personality is enthralling.

To sum it up, yes, Netflix’s Americanized live-action film adaptation of Death Note didn’t turn out to be a disaster.  It’s not an atrocity like Dragonball Evolution.  It has some merits to be enjoyed.  But it’s still so fundamentally flawed.

I hate this movie so much.