Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
There’s really no way around it — Netflix’s Death Note is a mess. It’s a beautifully stylized mess with some glimmers of fun between its inconsistent tone and rapid fire pace, but it’s still a mess. That being said, credit should be given where credit is due. Adam Wingard’s adaptation lends a new flavor to a property that’s now become an anime, live action series, a movie, and a musical, all of which have roughly used the same tone.
Even in the best hands and with a steep budget, adapting the Death Note manga into a movie is a daunting task. Written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, the property is, at its core, a game of ethical cat-and-mouse between a brilliant high school student and the greatest detective in the world. All of this is set against an elaborate supernatural backdrop. There’s a lot of rules and even more world-building, all of which take time to establish. That’s also ignoring the introduction Near and Mello, two men who later take over once the series’ central investigation — an element most adaptations choose to skip entirely, including Wingard’s. A 37-episode series is enough time to explore the compelling characters and complicated themes of this crime-filled and highly intelligent property. An hour and a half is not.
That’s also glossing over the whitewashing accusations the American adaptation of this very Japanese story has faced. Light Yagumi’s encounter with the god of death Ryuk is a story seeped in the Japanese lore and tradition. It’s difficult to throw the whole thing into Seattle without losing a lot of the nuance.
However, when you look at Wingard’s Death Note on its own, timing is the main problem it struggles with. The movie has so much to cover, both plot-wise and thematically, and it’s so excited to reveal its new, Americanized version of these well-known character, it stumbles over itself far too often. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it often feels like three separate movies, which it very well may be. After all, the movie is credited with having three screenplay credits: Charles Parlapanides, Vlas Parlapanides, and Jeremy Slater.
Regarding the history of this property, the first tonally separate arc is its most interesting. Whereas Light Yagumi is typically portrayed as a clean-cut and polished student who is the model of a perfect son, Nat Wolff’s Light Turner has a rebellious streak. Almost immediately after finding the Death Note, Light is called into the principal’s office for selling completed homework to other students. He’s your typical, smarter-than-average high school movie rebel, which can have its own charms but often is played too flatly in this version. However, as predictable as this character is, it does change the focus of this well-adapted property a bit.
So much of Death Note focuses on the mature battle of wits between its two antiheroes, it’s easy to forget that Light is a teenager. He may act composed, but he has a simplistic and arguably juvenile view of the world and morality. It’s hard to see and reckon with that when it comes from the highly intelligent versions of Light, but Wolff’s take on the character dumbs him down a bit and allows him to express a large range of authentic emotions. Because Wolff’s Light isn’t the sociopath-adjacent monster we’re used to, the movie’s central question changes from who deserves to die and what is the role of justice and the justice system to what would a teenager do if he could kill anyone without consequence. As a result, most of the original’s deeply compelling moralistic questions are lost — a choice that benefits the movie’s run time and gives Wingard room to play with the gorgeously framed visuals he’s known for.
However, humanizing Light ultimately hurts the character’s confrontation of L. Death Note has always been a story that has a lot going on, but most fans’ favorite part is the cat-and-mouse game between Light and the dark and quirky detective L. Lakeith Stanfield delivers a character that feels as though it was pulled right from the manga and anime. Stanfield’s performance is one of the shining lights in the movie, likely because Stanfield is practically unable to give a bad performance. But because his foe is a super smart high school student instead of a conniving genius, L often feels unmatched. The movie feels less like a battle of wits and more like one detective doing his job.
It’s hard to gauge whether Margaret Qualley’s Mia is an improvement from the manga’s Misa Amane or not. One one hand, Qualley’s performance fleshes the character out a bit, transforming her from less of an obsessive fan girl into a lovestruck and murder-loving cheerleader. On the other hand, the movie spends a significant amount of time building up a relationship between these Light and Mia that ultimately feels flat. However, Willem Dafoe as Ryuk is as creepy as you’ve ever seen the actor.
As a fan of the original manga and the 2006 anime series, it’s difficult to judge Wingard’s take on the property. One one hand, there is an amount of fun in losing the original’s dense theme and instead focusing on two teenagers’ murder-filled dreams. The movie makes adequate use of this focus, often harnessing Wingard’s flair for style in its depiction of elaborate murder devices. On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the whitewashing accusations. Also, if I went into this movie without knowing the original, I’m not sure if I’d be able to follow along.
That being said, I laughed more during this adaptation than I ever had watching Death Note. From the first time a screaming Light meets Ryuk to Light and Mia’s song-filled and slow-motion-packed ending, I ultimately had fun watching Netflix’s Death Note. That’s not the highest praise, but it’s high enough to make the movie worth checking out for the curious.
