Death Note is a popular Manga by Tsugumi Ohba, a dark psychological thriller about a Japanese high school student Light Yagami. Light is a genius and very calculating individual who one day finds a mysterious notebook called the Death Note. Any person who has their name written in it will die. There are rules to follow and a manipulative death god (Shinigami) named Ryuk. Together they (Light and Ryuk) play a well-thought-out game of cat and mouse with a brilliant but very eccentric detective that simply goes by the name “L”.

A dark story unfolds where Light becomes the enigmatic figure Kira. Kira slowly takes the lives of criminals around the world gaining god-like status. He and L even play a match of tennis. Even though L knows that Light is Kira he is unable to ultimately bring Kira to justice.

This movie from Netflix however is a pale shadow of all those things. While it is merely based on the original it falls short in almost every way. As I said Light was a cold calculating character, he was too smart for his own good but the Light in this movie (Light Turner) is none of those things. While they try to establish how smart he is he often comes off as just the opposite. He instantly shares this secret with a girl he likes “Mia” who turns out to be more manipulative than Light.

Light and Mia start killing criminals across the country and beyond taking up the name Kira. Instead of being a mysterious figure like before; they instantly reveal L and then try to hide him only to reveal him again… L instantly figures out that Kira is not Japanese but someone in the Seattle area where this version takes place. Using the same trap as in the Manga L figures out that Kira has something to do with law enforcement.

Light decides to slow down with the book usage but Mia proves to be a bit of a sociopath causing the deaths of multiple agents. This however puts Kira in a negative light as it shows fear and mortality instead of the god-like presence Kira built up. This puts L and the police into a more serious state than before pushing L’s hand sooner than he would have liked. L confronts Light in a coffee shop but is unable to make a move. Up to this point not much interesting has really occurred, a subplot with L’s assistant Watari and a power move by Mia to take the book for herself do little in the long run.

The final scenes in the movie are somewhat clever and a bit of a call back to the original. Light outmaneuvers Mia eventually causing her to die but ultimately possibly fails due to a page of the death note being left behind in Mia’s calculus book. L finds out about it and the movie ends with L standing over the page ready to write Light’s name.

In the end, however, this movie committed a terrible crime. It was kind of boring… The deaths they show in the film were needlessly gory and would be more in place in a slasher film than what was supposed to be a thriller. Light sporadically shows how smart he is as Mia is said to represent Lights manga counterpart’s sociopathic tendencies placing attention off the main character and onto an original creation. In doing so they effectively split Light into two different characters making both uninteresting in the process. Ryuk’s CGI was good but he was kept in the dark a lot, they kept a similar voice from the anime which was a nice touch. Overall though, even if you consider this is “based on” the manga it does little to live up to it. The original was a well-done near-masterpiece this is a pale shadow. The ending was well-played enough to help but in the end, I can only give this film 1.5/5