When I first heard about this new version of Death Note taking place in Seattle Washington I wasn't really bothered by it too much because we already have a Japanese live-action Adaptation already. I kept an open mind about it. I crossed my fingers being hopeful that just MAYBE the Americanized version can be fun and interesting while keeping things slightly different while retaining that Death Note feel.
Well, I thought they delivered the mood, and Ryuk was awesome but the overall structure was forced. I am someone who read the original Manga and never watched any of the anime adaptations or anything. Read up to like 7 volumes.
My first complaint is that "Light Turner" was such an American teen boy stereotype. He was another stupid whiney teenager who was dumb and resorted to cheating and paying other people to do his tests. He was a failing student and wasn't even in any sort of athletic club. He was a boring loner.
The original "Light Yagami" was truly the alpha male who pretty much was an amazing student and was athletic. For them changing the backstory of this character is beyond me, but I felt like it added no significance to the overall story. Both Turner and Yagami all had the same end-game, killing people with the Death Note without getting caught.
The thing that made Yagami interesting is the fact that you knew he wanted to kill people for fun and see how far he got. This white Light Turner dude just felt like he just had to do it, without any real emotional reasons other than killing his Mom's killer, and even that didn't get me that excited.
I think the main problem is that they could have easily fleshed out the story in a TV series, which I originally thought it was. It's just one short movie.
The Death Note creator is known to have very good character development and I can agree on it since I did read his other Manga called Bakuman, but without fleshing the characters the movie is boring and it ultimately failed.
It could have gone somewhere if it was a TV show to really flesh the stories and characters out but it was just a sample of what it could have been.
Give it a pass. Read the manga. I even heard the anime is good too.
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