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I'll preface this by saying I've never seen the source material this film is based on. What I know about it is simple; a kid is given a book, he writes a person's name in it and they die. So no, I'm not going to tear this film apart crying about how it does a disservice to the source material or complain about whitewashing. I don't remember people complaining about The Departed, which is kind of the same deal here. This is an American version of this story, so to me it makes sense.
Light Turner encounters a notebook with the words 'Death Note' written on the cover. Inside are rules dictating how to use it. Rule 1: The human whose name is written in this note shall die. Rule 2: This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected. A God of Death, shows up, his name is RYUK. He informs Light about how to use the book and they test it out on a high school bully. With this new power, Light decides to impress a girl at school that he likes and together they try to rid the world of bad people. This catches the attention of a character only known as 'L', a Sherlock like detective who makes it his mission to find out who is killing all these "bad guys".
I always love a good film that sets up its own mythology then sticks to it. I didn't get a good sense of that with Death Note though. There are dozens of rules, we maybe hear 6 of them? If you write someone's name, you can burn the page later and the person survives...but you can only do this once? Weird rules pop up here and there, to advance the plot of course, but never to expand upon this book and the world.
The character of 'L' is only lightly touched upon. No one knows his name and he likes to hide his face. Was he a previous owner of this book? No, they simply state he's a brilliant detective. A small sequence where a character tries to learn his name by going into L's past is interesting, but short-lived. We don't get a good sense of this world and leaving it to our imagination hurts the overall feel.
Death Note has a very Final Destination feel to it. Each death plays out like a death in one of those movies. Someone walks down a street, their grocery bag rips open, causing a guy to loose his basketball, he chases it into the street, two cars swerve to avoid him, one has a ladder perched on the roof, which goes flying off and decapitates someone. Blood everywhere, head rolling, pretty gruesome. Those over the top death sequences were fun in those films and they are somewhat fun here, but again, feel short-lived. The first two deaths have this aspect, where the rest just sort of happen.
Wingard is a guy to look out for, his previous films You're Next & The Guest, are genre embracing films that work to elevate those genres. He was rising within the horror community getting segments in V/H/S and The ABC's of Death. I haven't seen Blair Witch, but I haven't heard good things and now Death Note, which seems to be getting ripped to shreds, has his career taken a dive already? The film is not directly poorly, it has some style and feels energetic. The source material sounds great too, absurd enough to work within his genre loving hands. So it's weird to see the final product be so mediocre.
One aspect of the film that worked for me was the girlfriend, Mia, played by Margaret Qualley whom you might remember as the girl on the run in The Nice Guys. She seems more obsessed with the book than Light does and even proposes the idea of killing Light's father to help cover up their identities. Does she love being with Light or does she love using the book? An over the top grand spectacle at the end answers this question and raises the possibility of a sequel, which I don't think will happen.
Death Note is an odd film that will have trouble converting new people to the source material and turns old fans away from anything new. It's in limbo. It's not terrible, but not great either. Maybe more time should have been spent on building this unique world and less on the blood and guts? I'm not too sure, the one thing I know is that it definitely needed more Willem Dafoe.
Death Note
(Adam Wingard)
(Adam Wingard)
I'll preface this by saying I've never seen the source material this film is based on. What I know about it is simple; a kid is given a book, he writes a person's name in it and they die. So no, I'm not going to tear this film apart crying about how it does a disservice to the source material or complain about whitewashing. I don't remember people complaining about The Departed, which is kind of the same deal here. This is an American version of this story, so to me it makes sense.
Light Turner encounters a notebook with the words 'Death Note' written on the cover. Inside are rules dictating how to use it. Rule 1: The human whose name is written in this note shall die. Rule 2: This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected. A God of Death, shows up, his name is RYUK. He informs Light about how to use the book and they test it out on a high school bully. With this new power, Light decides to impress a girl at school that he likes and together they try to rid the world of bad people. This catches the attention of a character only known as 'L', a Sherlock like detective who makes it his mission to find out who is killing all these "bad guys".
I always love a good film that sets up its own mythology then sticks to it. I didn't get a good sense of that with Death Note though. There are dozens of rules, we maybe hear 6 of them? If you write someone's name, you can burn the page later and the person survives...but you can only do this once? Weird rules pop up here and there, to advance the plot of course, but never to expand upon this book and the world.
The character of 'L' is only lightly touched upon. No one knows his name and he likes to hide his face. Was he a previous owner of this book? No, they simply state he's a brilliant detective. A small sequence where a character tries to learn his name by going into L's past is interesting, but short-lived. We don't get a good sense of this world and leaving it to our imagination hurts the overall feel.
Death Note has a very Final Destination feel to it. Each death plays out like a death in one of those movies. Someone walks down a street, their grocery bag rips open, causing a guy to loose his basketball, he chases it into the street, two cars swerve to avoid him, one has a ladder perched on the roof, which goes flying off and decapitates someone. Blood everywhere, head rolling, pretty gruesome. Those over the top death sequences were fun in those films and they are somewhat fun here, but again, feel short-lived. The first two deaths have this aspect, where the rest just sort of happen.
Wingard is a guy to look out for, his previous films You're Next & The Guest, are genre embracing films that work to elevate those genres. He was rising within the horror community getting segments in V/H/S and The ABC's of Death. I haven't seen Blair Witch, but I haven't heard good things and now Death Note, which seems to be getting ripped to shreds, has his career taken a dive already? The film is not directly poorly, it has some style and feels energetic. The source material sounds great too, absurd enough to work within his genre loving hands. So it's weird to see the final product be so mediocre.
One aspect of the film that worked for me was the girlfriend, Mia, played by Margaret Qualley whom you might remember as the girl on the run in The Nice Guys. She seems more obsessed with the book than Light does and even proposes the idea of killing Light's father to help cover up their identities. Does she love being with Light or does she love using the book? An over the top grand spectacle at the end answers this question and raises the possibility of a sequel, which I don't think will happen.
Death Note is an odd film that will have trouble converting new people to the source material and turns old fans away from anything new. It's in limbo. It's not terrible, but not great either. Maybe more time should have been spent on building this unique world and less on the blood and guts? I'm not too sure, the one thing I know is that it definitely needed more Willem Dafoe.