Netflix's Death Note (2017): Is it worth watching?

Good Evening guys and welcome to another post here on World of Anime Girl. It is another FAQ post and this time it is related to Netfilx's movie adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba's Death Note. Every otaku has been asking the same question: Is the movie worth watching? Here's my answer, enjoy!

First of all, I did not read the Death Note manga. I only watched the anime and my first question, after seeing that it will get a live action movie, was: how can they put 37 episodes in only one movie? Well, the thing Netflix did was to change the whole story line so that it can fit the length. Other than the idea of the anime and the main characters, the movie has nothing similar to the original story. In the beginning I thought that they did a terrible job, but after considering the fact that they could never make a good movie out of the anime, I accepted it and what's more, I even enjoyed it, to some extend at least. 

Like I mentioned, the movie is totally different from the anime. Now set in Seattle, USA the movie follows Light Turner, a high school student that finds the Death Note in his school yard. It is easy to notice how they actually Americanized the whole movie especially when it comes to the setting and the characters. As I said before, I didn't have a problem with them changing the story line so that it can fit the movie length, but there are two major issues I had with the movie. 

First of all, how could they possibly turn the mystery, psychological, thriller masterpiece into a cringy, horror, drama, that reminds me more of the Final Destination movie series rather than the original Death Note. Instead of leaving the setting as it is, in Japan, Netflix adapted the movie so that it can fit the American culture and that was the second biggest mistake they could do. The anime lost its charm and so turned into yet another teenage horror, full of unnecessary gore that of course had to end with prom night. 

Secondly and with it, the greatest mistake they did while adapting the original was to change the characters, and I am not talking about the character looks. I loved Light Yagami for being arrogant, smart, persistent and most importantly, level headed. But Timmy Turner, sorry, I mean Light Turner, is the complete opposite. Freaking out over the first obstacle he encounters is one of the things the original Light would never do. By keeping a cool head Light Yagami was able to accomplish what he did, but this one messed up right in the beginning. Keeping calm was also one of L's most important characteristics, but the movie turned him into an impulsive crybaby that lost control over him self after just one little loss. But hey, at least he got the squattig right. And now we come to the character that was, in my opinion, messed up the most, Misa Amane, or as in the movie Mia Sutton. Her loyalty to Light was a crucial part of the original Death Note but in the Netflix version, she became a manipulative bi*** who wanted control over the notebook for her self. What's more, the dynamic and intriguing relationship the two had, turned into a cringy, teenage romance, that was, undoubtedly, a total flop.

And lastly, there was Ryuk. The Shinigami that acted just as the spectator in the original work, became the pupet master in the Netflix version. In that way, the movie completely lost connections to the original work and turned into yet another bad adaptation that did have the potential to be good. The only bright thing of the movie was undoubtedly, Willem Dafoe in the role of Ryuk. The cast was in general really good but Dafoe did an outstanding job playing that role and if it wasn't for him, I would have probably hated the movie. Which I did not. Here's why:

By imagining the movie in a world where the anime doesn't exists, it let me enjoy the movie to some extend. It was exciting and interesting but of course, incomparable to the original work. So, on the whole, I did enjoy the movie, but if I were to compare it to the original Death Note, I would probably give it a 2/10. 1 is for the fact that they didn't mess up the story that much and 1 for Willem Dafoe. In short, I think you won't regret spending 1h and 40 min on this adaptation but Netflix's Death Note  is yet another live action adaptation that definitely deserves its name to be written down in the Death Note.