The Netflix Death Note Movie

There were things good about the movie, DeFoe as Ryuk was a treat, and at some points it felt like maybe Mia has more agency then any previous woman in a Death Note story.  All the actors did well with what they were given.

The first thing that annoys me is that the point of my defense of Light being White, the reason I still think Light can only be White in any future attempt at another American set Death Note.  Was completely undermined by having him be this obvious potential school shooter.  Light is supposed to be privileged.

I had also already talked about how Death Note should be done as a series, Netfix is specializing in TV serises right now, so that makes it doubly annoying.

The first scene between Light and his Dad just had me thinking "setting it in America shouldn't mean shoehorning in American cliches".

All the characters and dynamics felt different.  Again they made Light too sympathetic.

It bugs me even that they never included a defaulting to death by Heart Attack.  Clearly these people were more interested in the excuse to do Omen/Final Destination style death scenes.

The thing is, I can forgive a lot of liberties if I feel like in some weird way it still captures the spirit or the gist of what Death Note's real appeal was.  I've even said that all things considered the Super Mario Bros movie is a good Mario movie.  It's not by the book faithful, but it's a fun wacky goofy colorful self parody with some heart to it.  That's what the best story driven Mario games are like.

The number one thing that I wanted from Death Note was a battle of wits, I wanted it to feel like two characters constantly trying to out think and out smart each others.  I wanted the tension of Light and L trying to read each other.  This movie was ultimately too rushed to ever pull that off, or seem like it was trying to.

At the very end we a get the typical "here's how he did it all" sequence.  The Death Note Anime also did that revealing it latter thing, but it still felt consistent with the character we had been following.  I felt the 2015 Light Yagami was being too stupid early on, but at least there was some build up there.

One final little thing.  Does the Death Note Anime exist in this movie's universe???  There are several reasons why it clearly doesn't.  But why else would Light Turner expect Mia to be able to see Ryuk from just touching the Death Note?  There is really no logical reason to assume that, Light in the Anime had not at all suspected that could happen before Ryuk warned him.  That scene is clearly just there to tell the audience "hey we changed this rule, for no plot relevant reason".  This is why I hate the "Show don't tell rule" because we get scenes like this that look stupid and awkward instead of just simple exposition.