SPECIAL: Death Note (Trilogy)

Death Note
2006
Death Note: The Last Name
2006
Direction: Shuusuke Kaneko

L: Change the World
2008
Direction: Hideo Nakata

Quickie:
There’s this notebook?

General Impression:
Good. Not impressive, story-wise. Some fans might be disappointed, others might like it. Pretty solid adaptation in my opinion.

Lows:
The thriller elements needs a little more kick, the supernatural elements are nearly forgotten

Highs:
It ends better than the canon manga story did, Ken’ichi Matsuyama as L isn’t that bad, Erika Toda is pretty (this counts), the material was handled well i.e. the kinks of the slightly amateur writing was worked out

Notes:
Perhaps it isn’t fair to roll up the review for three movies in one but I’d like to think of this trilogy as a complete whole.

I found the movie adequate and interesting enough. The manga and the anime are massively overrated, really. The material is very interesting because it is forever fun to debate about morals. Add the fact that it’s Japanese, which for some part of the population makes it twice as cool, and you have a winning combi.

As far as movies go, it isn’t bad at all. It’s several steps above average, actually. I think it was brilliant for them to set it apart from the manga and the anime. Sometimes it’s good to stick with the material but in this case, deviating made it better. The characters are still who you expect them to be and the theme is in place. The morality debate is not as forced as it is in the manga. The choices made were better motivated, the scenes made sense and all three movies fit together quite well.

Not a bad way to spend a few hours of your life. Might not be for people who take the morality debate way too seriously.

FINAL RATING:
[3] out of [5]