Before I talk about director Adam Wingard’s Death Note as a film, I feel I need to address the casting. When someone decides to make an adaptation of a property from another country, there are understandably going to be some cultural differences at play. That said, it’s still disappointing to see the remarkable lack of Asian actors in what has always been a story whose origins are so steeped in Japanese culture and folklore.
William Dafoe delivers a decent performance as Ryuk, the Shinigami (or “death spirit”) who tempts Light, but there’s a wide swath of non-Caucasian actors who could have been considered. And even if that weren’t an issue, there are still themes the manga and anime touched on that this new 2017 version probably could have explored in more detail.
Like the original, it focuses on a mysterious notebook with the ability to kill those whose names are written in its pages. Dealing with a tense relationship with his father (Shea Whigham), a police chief who failed to save his mother from a mobster, Light Turner (Nat Wolff) is understandably intrigued when it falls into his possession.
As a moody teen who feels isolated from his peers and is intelligent beyond his years, he can’t resist its potential. At first, it starts with a schoolyard bully, then it elevates to criminals, and then powerful gangsters and terrorists.
This is the point in Tsugumi Ohba’s story when Light begins to develop a god complex, and in both versions, he takes on the moniker of “Kira”. Under his new name, he attracts fanatical followers across the world who both fear and are in awe of his apparent omnipresence.
Most investigators are baffled, the exception being a secretive detective codenamed “L” (Lakeith Stanfield) who’s armed with a persistent nature and a massive sweet tooth. Instead of Light starting off as a silent force of justice who is inevitably corrupted by his powers, Netflix version shifts Light’s moral dilemma towards a complex relationship with Mia Sutton (Margaret Qualley), a classmate who he shows the book and forms a partnership with.
Netflix’s Death Note is also far more violent- the original’s book only permitted deaths via heart attack, and 2017’s allows the user to execute its victims in any fashion it so chooses. Being a massive teenage edgelord, Light takes advantage of this rule and offs criminals in extremely gory fashions. Some of the deaths are rather creative, and it does allow for more variety from a visual standpoint and adds the possibility of different situations.
However, the tradeoff is that makes for a bleaker feeling, and that in turn comes off tonally jarring when the movie cuts from scenes of utter horror to Light and Mia’s affairs and homecoming preparations. That and some of the killings are so over-the-top, they produce more laughs than screams.
There were some changes I preferred. This version establishes a stronger emotional connection between L and his assistant Watari (Paul Nakauchi), as the anime only briefly hinted at the two’s pasts involving the orphanage. But it generally feels like the characters have overall been dumbed down- L’s public disguise isn’t very convincing, nor does he bother to alter his voice at all. Were I in Light’s shoes- first off, I wouldn’t take Ryuk’s offer to begin with. But if I did, I wouldn’t want to reveal the book to any of my friends.
The climax is chaotic, and without spoiling anything, there is a method to the chaos unfolding. But watching it play out, it comes across like people in a panic making foolish decisions as opposed to the chess game the original story showcased. And to be fair, the writers are working in a more compressed time frame so there’s only so much they can get across, but the dynamic between L and Light really isn’t that compelling. Light’s conflicts are more between Mia (who I think is supposed to be a representative of Misa) and Ryuk.
This…this ain’t good, ya’ll. The original series is one of my favorite animated shows ever, so I’ll admit I may be holding Netflix’s Death Note to a standard that it likely couldn’t personally meet. And Wolff and particularly Stanfield’s performances are generally solid. They try their best with the material they’re given. But not only is the dialogue weak, the motivations of their characters are constantly in flux, and that makes it difficult when the film wants you to really care about what happens next. Often the story feels less like the cat-and-mouse game it was intended to be, and more like a crude mashup of blood and screaming.
Whether you feel it lives up to the manga or not is up to you, and I am generally fine with the idea of a Death Note film that makes some changes and tries to experiment with the old formula. My issue is more with the specific choices the filmmakers made. There’s a wealth of interesting ideas and themes (much of the social commentary and explorations into moral psychology) that were left unexamined, too many typical horror/suspense clichés, and the narrative isn’t strong enough to make up for other parts of the film that fell flat. Not recommended.