Death Note

The subject of Death Note -- a occult notebook with the superpower to wipe out anyone whose name is written in it -- sounds interesting enough, but visually it can't be all that entertaining. A guy scribbles a name in a notebook; person with aforementioned name dies. Repeat. Thus, to keep the account suspenseful, the filmmakers would have to pay special attention to other elements in storytelling, such as creating tension, executing cagey plot twists, and mayhap developing the characters (if they're touch ambitious). Unfortunately, Death Note does none of that.


Based on the manga with the same title, Death Note centers on Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara), a top highschool school student who aspires to disembarrass the earth of evil by writing criminals' name calling in the Death Note. There ar some rules to victimization this notebook: While committal to writing the person's name, you must picture his or her expression; if you don't intend the cause of expiry, the person dies of a spirit attack by default; if you possess a Death Note, you'll be haunted by its original owner -- in Yagami's casing, a pale reaper wHO resembles Marilyn Manson with wings. Internet fans cause dubbed Yagami "Kira" -- derived from the word killer in Japanese. Police, of course of instruction, are aegir to arrest Kira to put an end to these mass murders.


Sounds pretty cool, correct? And you might think, �Good thing Death Note was made in Japan -- a country whose cinema is famous for some of the best horror flicks, such as The Ring and The Grudge.� But you'd be wrong.


Rather than being a suspenseful, dark film, Death Note looks more like a Japanese music video. The colors are hopeful and jolly; Yagami looks and acts of the Apostles like a J-pop lead; and L (Ken'ichi Matsuyama), the world's #1 detective trying to catch Yagami, is wearing far too much eye shadow to be taken seriously. The camera restlessly moves to and fro, following each character in the frame as if to say, "Hurry up! Let's get this moving!" But this isn't a film that should be rushed. It'd be better to let simmer.


The cat and mouse relationship 'tween Yagami and L has the electric potential to be fascinating. Both characters are regarded as considerably sound -- and both ar blindly trying to uncover one another's identity, selfsame similar to the relationship between Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon in The Departed (in the beginning, Infernal Affairs). But Yagami's and L's ploys to trick one another appear rather screwball. The film is only engaging in the sense that you might pass more time thinking, "Well, if I were in Yagami's place, a smarter way to trick L into thought ____ would've been to do ____."


And if it's possible to not advocate a film based on one scene, it'd have to be the one in which Yagami and his girlfriend go on a date in the museum. A sappy Japanese song blares loudly in the background while the two chew over making out right then and there. All jocose aside, the scene looks like a chapter from a karaoke laser disc.


I suppose the film is engaging in another sense -- in thinking about what I'd do with a Death Note. I'd probably write my possess name in the notebook while observance this movie.


Aka Desu n�to.