Willem Dafoe stated that he felt he "didn't feel the need," to research the role of Ryuuk and I honestly believe no one, with the exception of Lakeith Standfield's L, even attempted to do this franchise any justice. After the first half an hour of Death Note, the movie had deviated so heavily from the source material that I felt at best I should abandon all hope of it ever veering back on course. With that said, I was laughing enough to actually question if I was truly enjoying the film. Light Turner, played by Nat Wolff is different in just about every single way from his inspiration Light Yagami. A lot less menacing or cunning and a lot less to care about. Death Note is a film that sort of happens without any real mystery except for a small "how did he do it," towards the end, which leads up to one of the most unsatisfying endings I've seen in any films this year. Mia Sutton, the would be major character, hardly gets the character development she should have received by the time you reach the big twist, you care more about the fact that the movie hasn't ended yet that you do about her character. However, she was also one of the more entertaining parts of the film, along with a surprising L, that at least managed to capture a lot of the mannerisms of the popular anime character. The biggest issue that is presented with Death Note which comes at the end of summer 17 and was another highly anticipated white washed movie is the message it sends to Hollywood. There is absolutely no reason that the entire cast could not have been played by Japanese actors, still set in Seattle, with the exact series of events occurring. In fact, the hysteria of people watching bad films for the sake of seeing how bad they are does more harm than good. It allows the perpetual cycle of these films occurring over and over again. Since we have no actual clue as to whether Death Note was a massive weekend hit for Netflix, we just have to hope that the formula will eventually be scrapped, and some respect will be shown to these beloved characters and franchises.
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