Death Note

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Death Note is based off of the anime and manga of the same name. The movie is directed by Adam Wingard (the director of You’re Next, The Guest, and Blair Witch). High school student Light Turner (Nat Wolff) discovers a book titled “Death Note” A demon named Ryuk (voiced by Willem Dafoe) goads Light into using the book. Light and his girlfriend Mia (Margaret Qualley) begin using the book as a way to kill criminals. The two create a “god” and call it “Kira.” A detective named L (Lakeith Stanfield) is assigned to the case, trying to find the two. I just want to say that I never read the book or watched the anime, so I went into this movie with no real background knowledge. For the most part, the cast is pretty good. Willem Dafoe as Ryuk, Lakeith Stanfeild as L, and Margaret Qualley as Mia are probably the standouts for me. On the other hand, lead actor Nat Wolff brought nothing to role of Light. He had about as much personality as a cardboard box. The tonal shifts were pretty jarring at times as well. There were legitimately moments where the humor just didn’t feel right to me. They felt a little too silly, and not really dark, sick, and twisted like I would have expected otherwise. Death Note is a movie that shows glimmers of being something I could call good. I don’t know if I can do that necessarily, but I can’t call it a complete waste of time either.   

4 / 10