In short: Death Note (2017)

It is rather interesting to compare Adam Wingard’s manga adaptation for Netflix with the Japanese live action version. Where the Japanese movies were apparently trying to copy the complete plot structure and include every pointless bit of minutiae from the (very good, for those who don’t know it) original manga without any thought for the needs of a different medium, and therefore ended up slow as molasses and very much on the tedious side, Wingard’s adaptation takes great liberties with the source material but races through the plot beats and characters it keeps with wild abandon. It’s enough to give anyone whiplash, so much so that the movie often feels not so much like an actual movie but like an attempt to cut the material of one or two whole seasons of a TV show into a film-like thing.

Consequently, everything about the film is superficial: there’s no time for characterisation, certainly nothing of the depth of ethical discussions of the manga (how much thought can you put into the thirty seconds you have before you need to race to the next plot point, after all?), and scenes that should have emotional impact never hit because the film never takes the time it would need to build an emotional (or intellectual) connection with the viewer.

Emotional connections aren’t the only things Death Note doesn’t bother to build: there’s no atmosphere because you’d need to spend time on building it; no suspense because again, you’d need to build it up; and no tension not based on characters acting like tropes instead of people because, surprise, the film never takes its time to establish anything about them beyond the barest clichés – and that of course as quickly as possible.

I’d criticize the acting, as well, but then, there isn’t anything in the script that gives the actors much to work with, and there’s – of course – no space in the film to let them breathe a little anyway. Only Lakeith Stanfield as L leaves any impression at all, and that’s more because the film keeps many of the behavioural tics and visual cues of the original character, which at least makes him interesting to look at, than on account of much actual acting; not his fault, obviously.


As a whole, the film doesn’t so much feel like a narrative but like the summary of one, and lacks any kind of tension, or any drive beyond hurtling from plot beat to plot beat to plot beat for no reason at all. Death Note is pretty to look at, at least, but if ever a film deserved the old cliché about nothing waiting beyond the pretty surface, it’s this one.