"Death Note" review

It’s schlocky, trashy, and unapologetically B-Movie in nature and presentation. I love it.

Given its status in pop culture at the heart of the great anime boom of the last 2 decades, there’s bound to be some sort of reverence for the 2006 manga series “Death Note” that will probably turn off the most slavishly devoted fans to Adam Wingard’s 2017 take on the franchise.

The movie is an Americanized retelling of a teenager’s discovery of a deity’s notebook that allows him to kill anybody he can facially recognize whose name is transcribed into the pages within. He then lets this power feed into his own self-righteous ego and uses it to kill off criminals and terrorists worldwide in an effort to reshape the world in his own image while trying to avoid an elusive detective that has managed to narrow down his domain and prevent his ultimate takedown by law enforcement.

The manga is basically a giant elaborate game of cat and mouse between the killer (Kira) and the detective (L) that may successfully distract some from what the story itself ultimately is; a fun, well paced, and immaculately constructed but ultimately trashy and pulpy piece of junk food storytelling out to entertain those with the attention span to keep up.

Although the hour and a half length prevents it from capturing that same number of twists and turns that the series could make in decompression, the result is basically a similar experience that benefits from leaning a bit more on the self aware side through the context of archetypes in young adult American society.

“Death Note’s” characters are very stock in nature and that aspect is not lost in translation. Where the film ultimately works however is in taking advantage of the way in which these characters are shaped by the culture around them. This is an aspect of humanity that has become something of a trademark Wingard and coupled with a round of solid if occasionally campy performances, it serves the movie well.

Nat Wolff’s take on Light manages to garner just a little bit of sympathy thanks to a lack of smugness in his mission which is inexcusably immoral combined with constant and almost humorous reminders throughout the film that for all of his efforts to play god he’s but a mere mortal child that is in way over his head, while Shea Whigham's veteran chops probably bring more to the table of the film as a tired cop and father struggling to balance his career and personal feelings towards justice and victimization than what was even intended or written.

Of particular note are Margaret Qualley as Light’s girlfriend who walks the line between different types of subtly psychotic so well that I almost questioned whether the obvious twist that arises in the third act was going to come to fruition, and of course Willem Dafoe, who would have been good by sheer virtue of being Willem Dafoe but I’m sure the numerous side by side photos of him with his manga counterpart, the Shinigami Ryuk should be speaking for themselves.

The result is something of a supernatural thriller that plays on the B-Movie aspects of its genre veteran filmmaker's forte in an unapologetically emo immature wish fulfillment adolescent power fantasy punctuated by exaggerated “Final Destination-esque” death sequences and with no delusions of its characters being particularly romantic or heroic, with hilarious subversion occurring whenever it would seem otherwise.

“Death Note (2017)” knows the type of ride that it wants to deliver and aims only to satisfy.

Now don’t let my praise mislead into believing that the movie is perfect or even great by any stretch of the imagination.

While the performances generally hold things together, the script does seem to fall unfortunate victim of moving grand concepts and characteristics to a more compressed format. The characters don’t get much room to breathe outside of the mechanics of the plot and Keith Stanfield becomes an unfortunate victim of that hyper focus, as a twist involving his take on L aiming to explain several of his quirks and mannerisms feel a bit too grand in the scope of the narrative for how quickly it gets brushed off.

It also makes the impact of a few character interactions feel more limp than they should given the solid work of the cast behind them and a few cases of off screen Machiavellian twists that pile on almost farcically towards the end of the movie hint at an imagination regarding the material that definitely could have spiced up the meat of the feature but comes off a bit sloppily tacked onto where it is.

“Death Note (2017)” makes no effort to pretend being anything more than the light and junky romp that it ultimately comes out to be but its utter dedication and use of resources towards being just that while knowing its perfect avenue for release was a high profile streaming service rather than a theatrical release make it just about the best kind of junkfood cinema that you could possibly ask for, put together by an artist that is revealing himself to be an excellent craftsman of this sort of thing but with plenty of potential to branch out with the right project.

It’s Friday night, so call in a pizza with your friends and grab a 6 pack because it may not be a classic but “Death Note (2017)” delivers exactly where it counts and there is nothing wrong with that.

6 Unexplained Mystery Heart Attacks out of 10