*Originally written August 26th, 2017*
"Book of the Dead"
I wasn't massively sure what to expect from Death Note. I've never seen the anime show (Probably never will) and being a Netflix film meant my expectations in term of quality were very low. Also, after Adam Wingard's Blair Witch, I was pretty ready to write this off entirely.
Despite a pretty poor script at times, I actually had a fun time with Death Note. It's silly, stupid and a bit of a mess, but like Wingard's other films, it takes these problems and sorta makes them work? Not to the extent The Guest and You're Next managed, but he managed to make a watchable film.
My main problems were mostly with the last act. The twists get pulled out very fast and frequent (Some also very predictable, to the point I was surprised they were treated as such a big reveal), it made it a bit laughable by the end. The ending itself was also very abrupt and a bit annoying. I know Wingard as has said there could potentially be more Death Note films for Netflix, so I guess they left the door open, but it was handled pretty poorly here.
Everything else though was absolutely fine. The cast were good. Nat Wolff was a bit annoying at first as the lead Light, but he quickly grew on me. Willem Dafoe was the stand out as the voice of Ryuk (The God of Death or something). His menacing voice worked for the character, which I also loved the practical design for. I did also like Lakeith Stanfield as L, who seemed like a character from an anime, and probably had the most personality out of everyone, despite looking like he was dressed in Watch Dogs cosplay. Margaret Qualley was a bit of a mixed bag as the love interest, but that's mostly fault of the writing rather than her actually performance.
This whole thing is at its most fun when Light is getting to play with the Death Note (A book where you write someone's name down in it and they die), he uses these powers for good, going on a montage of killing just criminals. Then the police get involved after Light makes the stupid decision to give his killings a signature, one the police quickly trace back to Light's city.
Wingard's style and direction is certifiably assured. The film looks gorgeous, one of the best to come out of Netflix. There's no terrible CGI and a lot of the gore is practical and looked disgusting (Enough so to get the rare "18" rating in the UK, which seems rare these days). The soundtrack sounds like it was made up of unused tracks from The Guest, which is a compliment. The soundtrack was great.
Death Note will probably be hated by many and it has its problems, but for the most part I had a good time with it and it's easily a step in the right direction for Wingard after the terrible Blair Witch.
7/10 Dans
Death Note is streaming worldwide now on Netflix
Watch the trailer below:
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