Movie Review - Death Note

Well I didn't watch the live action Ghost in the Shell so I'll give this a try instead. Now as someone who admires anime, I have actually seen the anime that this film is based on so this review will no doubt be a comparison as well as what I thought of it on its own. Now of course most anime is based on a manga of some description and Death Note is no exception. Its an interesting concept and while it has been adapted into live action films before, this time its been Americanised and the last time I checked, whitewashing tends to not go down well for live action adaptations of manga and anime unless its done right and the original creators are happy with how it turned out. So let's see if this turns out OK (and those of you who have Netflix can watch this film and the entire anime minus the TV specials):

Set in present day Seattle, a high school student named Light (played by Nat Wolff) comes across the titular notepad which falls from the sky. Upon discovering this, he is greeted by the demon known as Ryuk (played physically by Jason Liles and voiced by the Green Goblin himself, William Dafoe) who explains to him about the Death Note and how it works. Learning of its ability to grant the death of anyone who's name is written down in it (just as long as the death is realistic and the holder knows the face), Light tests it on a bully who hit him which results in the bully's head being decapitated by a freak car accident. Light then proceeds to have his mother's killer be killed before meeting a fellow student called Mia (played by Margaret Qualley) who learns of the Death Note and persuades him to rid the world from criminals under the guise of Kira. This then leads to the two becoming lovers while also attracting the attention of a enigmatic detective known simply as L (played by Keith Stanfield) who learns about Kira's actions and heads to Seattle in the hopes of taking him down.

So as far as the film is concerned, I like that it tries to do its own thing while retaining many elements from the manga and anime such as names of characters, their roles and of course, the purpose of the Death Note. But despite all that, the acting could do with some work because for most of the film, all I could hear was mumbling. Its also very, very dark and while I will admit that the anime was dark as well, at least with that it was dark enough for us to see things. This film unfortunately is too dark. As for the whitewashing, I personally don't have a problem with it but I can understand why people will have their frustrations about it. So yeah not a great live action anime remake, but certainly not the worst I've seen and I've only seen a handful of them to say that. 7/10