The Strange Review SPECIAL: Death Note

I've never expressed just how near (pun intended) and dear "Death Note" is to me. "Death Note" essentially showed me what anime could be if it wasn't trapped in it's need to be anime, if that makes any sense. "Death Note" at it's core is a detective story, pure and simple, the fantastical element of a notebook that kills anyone should their name be written in it is just icing on the cake. Light & L are characters that transcend themselves as they're archetypes of the perfect rivals, equally smart, equally driven and equally enthralled with each other and under different circumstances could have been friends. "Hannibal" was live action's answer to "Death Note", "Hannibal" being a show that showed me (a writer) that I had yet to realize what good writing was and it was going to show me.

My wife got me into watching "Death Note", she didn't know that as I watched it secretly behind her back and I surprised her by asking her if she knew Shinigami's liked apples. I adore "Death Note". And now here we are in a place we probably didn't know was coming but has nevertheless arrived. America has made their own live action version of "Death Note", the day is April. 7th (the day I began writing this opening paragraph) and a teaser trailer has dropped for "Death Note" to pretty much scathing reviews with profanity such as "Dragonball Evolution" being thrown about. I'll admit the teaser raised more eyebrows and questions for me as I've yet to get a solid handle on just how this will go but I am nonetheless thrilled to finally see it. Maybe thrilled is too strong of a word, more like anxious. Now that we have some images we can start to put this thing together and see what's what.

"Death Note" is NOT an easy property to adapt, let alone adapt to an American audience, let alone adapt for movie length running time. My wife has already expressed annoyance at the project and I don't blame here, L is one of her favorite characters and seeing as how he's not ANYTHING AT ALL like he is in the series is already eyebrow raising and for myself, annoying (as it raised issues of what I call "Blackmasking" and the fact that people are allowed to complain about Light being played by a White guy but you can't say anything about L being Black because racism..., right). But as it stands now, I'm remaining optimistic and eager to see how this story will go and if it'll hit all the story beats it needs to. Will this be it's own unique story or will they attempt to cram the full breadth of "Death Note" in a bite sized piece for us? Well, I guess we'll find out, so join me and my bag of potato chips and while I watch this movie, I'll take a potato chip and eat it...

Now that the dust has settled, let me put my cards on the table and say up front that I was expecting to like this adaptation. Yeah, I thought I was going to be an outlier in a chorus of otherwise pissed off fans who hated this thing to high hell. However, such was not the case and while I can say off the bat that I didn't completely hate it, I can say with 100% confidence that this was not a good story nor was it a good adaptation. That's not to say this didn't have it's good, it's just in the end (quite literally actually) the bad out weighed the good. I will also say that all of my assessments from the trailer has been 100% correct and that makes me happy. But all in all my wife and I did NOT enjoy this adaptation. But let's get to the play by play.

Let's talk about the good as the film does start off VERY good and VERY promising. As I stated in my trailer review this Light seemed less academically inclined than Yagami and while our initial introduction to him shows him doing homework for other students for profit and that's all we get. He's not a budding genius like Yagami and as I said before, that's okay and it was okay. Furthermore, this Light, instead of being driven by a false sense of superiority like Yagami, this Light is driven a bit more by justice having a personal tragedy (his mother's death) as his primary motivator and that made this Light a touch more noble and a touch more likable than Yagami (who, let's face it was a complete sociopath).

The things I wanted addressed were addressed such as why he's using the name "Kira" and shock of all shocks the film actually addressed it, "Kira" is Russian & Celtic for Light.  I enjoyed this because in the anime, the name "Kira" was given to Light and although he didn't like it, he accepted it and ran with it. This Light created the persona and you could see where Kira was and where Light was. I like the fact that they mention Light's mother was something of a hippie, hence why his name is Light (I mean hell, there's a girl named Apple and someone named Moonunit in real life so this doesn't seem far-fetched). I also really enjoyed the fact that this Light seemed to genuinely love his father, as opposed to Yagami who was decrying his father mentally on his deathbed for not killing Mello. Likewise, this Light was far more naive (makes sense, he's much younger than Yagami) and a lot more trusting.

This Light didn't make the fatal mistake of killing the FBI agent tailing him. Let's be 100% real here, Light's biggest mistake wasn't allying with Misa as many are want to believe, Light's biggest mistake (aside from picking up and using the Death Note) was killing Ray Penbar, that's when he had to start covering his ass. This Light, upon realizing he's being followed by The FBI is actively against killing him, and his biggest opponent is the film's analog to Misa, Mia Sutton, who I'll discuss later. Upon L's introduction he was made an interesting character and close enough to the actual L to be L but far enough to be his own character. Watari, likewise is different as he is younger and more concerned about L. There's a mention of insulin and the constant reminder of sleep that Watari passes on to L that showcases these character's history.

Everything after this scene was terrible. This was the last good scene in this entire movie.

L shows his deductive skills and he does have an excellent moment of confronting Light in a diner that I believed ALMOST cared with it the same weight as the "I am L." reveal in anime. However, after this point the film stops being a battle of wits and becomes...well...something that I can't quite put a name to...a teen romance drama? So here we go with The Bad and The Bad doesn't start until a 56 minutes into the film, however the signs and shades of the bad were present at the start. Which brings me back to Mia. The romance between Light & Mia was understandable but rushed and awful. I did enjoy the fact that Mia was essentially getting off on her proximity to the power (that was very realistic) and her Lady MacBething was also pretty damn awesome but the "romance" was none existent.

What I mean is, despite the Death Note there was no interaction between these characters that signaled anything with romantic potential. In the anime, Misa is a Kira worshiper and the 2nd Kira who benefited from Kira's judgement and wanted to repay Kira's kindness even stating that she was willing to be used by Kira regardless of motive, she just wanted to thank and aide Kira. Mia on the other had saw what Light could do with the Death Note, has sex with him and then suddenly they're dating. It'd have been much better if Mia benefited from Kira's judgement (same way Misa did) Light heard Mia discussing Kira and what she'd do for him with a group of girls and Light (being a high school kid wanting to impress, showed himself to Mia). That would make a lot more sense and would solidify the romance between them without making it INCREDIBLY forced like it was here.

After all, Mia would have a reason to say "I love you so much." if she was directly saved by Light than just having those words come out of nowhere. Mia plays the role of a dark horse in the film, constantly making it clear to Light that he must do what's necessary in order to ensure Kira's persona. While she's adapted to be Misa she's actually Light Yagami without the intelligence. So when the reveal comes that she essentially screwed Light to claim the Death Note, it comes off as obvious rather than her coming to the realization that his lack of "doing what's necessary" makes him unworthy to yield the Death Note. If that had been the debate, I'd have no problem as Mia would suffer from seeing her idol up close and realizing like most idols they stand on feet of clay, with Light's unwillingness to kill the FBI as the tipping point in her perception of Kira.

Anyways, I could talk ad nauseam about what should have happened and I may write that article eventually but as it stands I can only talk about what did happen. Early on I thought it was foreshadowing somethings but sadly that's not what happened. Case in point, Watari continued to ask L about how long it's been since he slept and mentioned insulin and I was thinking how interesting would it be if L had some sort of disability that Light could exploit that would ultimately hinder him in the end. So at 56 minutes into the story Watari get taken control of by Light via The Death Note (in this incarnation Watari is his real name....okay) credit where credit is due the film established that the Death Note can control someone over 48 hours prior to death, so they did foreshadow this and did set this up.

However, what follows afterwards is a where the movie effectively wets the bed (my wife and I both agree) is how Watari's death was treated and the complete contradiction of L's character in the scenes following afterwards. Prior to this point, L stated that he doesn't carry a gun as he finds them distracting and goes on a long (and pretty awesome) monologue about justice and his job as an investigator, but after Watari goes missing and ends up death on account of Mia, L grabs a gun and goes after Light. What follows after that is a ridiculous chase scene with L driving erratically and screaming and once again, it was a complete 180 of the character we established for this film. If I may indulge the "What should have happened" train of thought once again, with all the questions of L's sleep patterns & the mention of insulin, it would have been interesting if Watari's death would hinder L's access to a special medication he needed and without it, it would greatly hinder L's health. We've already established that he wears a special pair of glasses to sleep, this would make L's distress over Watari a little more than the loss of a personal friend (not that that isn't a great motivator in and of it's self).

And then this happens...

Long story short, there were shades of some really good stuff here that could have made this movie pretty awesome and maybe 1 or 2 re-writes would have made this movie much better than what was presented. As it stands now it's nowhere near "Dragonball Evolution" as that film had nothing good going for it. The same can't be said about this, this started off with amazing promise and lost it's way. Adam Wingard has his fingerprints all over it with the soundtrack (there are shades of "The Guest" in this movie) with heavy techno however in the case of "The Guest" that worked but here quite a few of the songs felt completely disjointed from the scenes they were in. However, I'll admit, playing Chicago's "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love" as Mia plummeted to her death was pretty hilarious.

This made me laugh out loud.

All of that being said, I could go on and on but I'd rather not because ultimately I'd just be playing the "How it should have been..." game and I can only do that for so long. It's clear to me, considering the ending, that they had no clue how to end the movie and it ends in a really awkward place. I will give the movie credit for making Light believable as a high school kid, his reaction to Ryuk and the Death Note it's self were all honest reactions and even the moment where he hugged his father after he stood up to Kira was very genuine and heartfelt. Wilem Defoe's Ryuk was fun but while the Ryuk in the anime was more or less friendly towards Light, this Ryuk was pretty much an asshole laughing at Light on the sidelines. Everytime he showed up in the movie was a bright spot. Once again, I'm disappointed that a movie that started off with so much promise could end up so horribly misdirected in the end. I don't know gang, aside from "Ghost In The Shell" (which admittedly I didn't see, not interested) has there ever been a good American live action adaptation? Let me know your thoughts and I'll catch you guys later.