Movies just watched - Theatre V1

[Rares]

I recently watched the Netflix Death Note movie. Wew, that was... something. It's probably a key example of why American adaptions of anime series just don't work, they end up missing the point.

I'll start with the positive. L was portrayed well despite my initial doubts, the actor did a good job despite admittedly not quite looking the part most of the time. He could have used his signature white shirt and jeans more often as opposed to the hoodie. However, the actor definitely had his mannerisms down. And Willem Defoe as Ryuk was fantastic. It's such a shame he was stuck in this adaption so to say, because he really was awesome as the character in every sense. If there ever was another adaption, he would be perfect. Admittedly, his scenes were the redeeming quality of the film for me.


And now onto... everything else. The movie felt incredibly rushed. And not even rushed in the sense that they crammed too much in from the source material. Going in, I was expecting it to be a fast adaption of the first major half of the source material. That being, prior to the introduction of Near, or maybe they'd end with Light joining the Kira taskforce. That was my expectation. However, instead it went for its own story, which is okay sure, except it still did some things oddly. In an adaption sure you can bend things a bit but I still believe you have to stick with some things. Ironically, this falls more in line with what I expected Death Note to be originally, and not what the anime/manga was. When I first heard of Death Note, I thought it was going to be about morals and Light would be conflicted about killing people. In the source material, Light has no such conflictions. He sets his mind towards his goal, and while he is the main character, he is definitely the "villain" of the story. Netflix Light, however, is that wishy washy "not sure of right or wrong" character, and honestly, it doesn't work as well here. The intense battle of wits between L and Light isn't present. And then the ending, it feels like they went for such a wimpy sequel bait but at the same time gave it such a lousey solid ending.

All in all, it was not great. But now I do have a hankering to rewatch the Death Note anime.