A new low for Wingard IMO which is unfortunate. I have never seen the anime, but between this and Blair Witch I really think the guy should just consider staying away from established franchise's because it obviously doesn't fit him. It's not even like this film is awful honestly, but it's painfully mediocre. The best thing about it for me were the gory, Final Destination esque deaths which there weren't enough of and William Dafoe as Ryuk.

I thought it was entertaining. It's a ridiculous concept and definitely plays like a Final Destination movie but I dug some of the twists and the climax was exciting. Wingard's style was definitely there. I thought Nat Wolff and Margaret Qualley's performances were bland though. B-

Not great but entertaining and stylish. Dafoe was terrific. Good soundtrack as can be expected from a Wingard film.

6/10 (B-)

This would have been better off being a limited series or something. There's a lot of information thrown at us for a movie. Needed more time than this to explore everything.

DEATH NOTE

I'm not comparing this to any anime since I've never seen it but I did enjoy this film overall. I thought Defoe was hilarious as Kira which was quite a visual piece and Nat Wolff gave a very good performance and looked better than ever, great hair. It was a intersting story and just dropped you right in it from the get go. I liked the unsual deaths and things. I wasn't a huge fan of this super hacker/detective that somehow is able to determine that Nat is Kira. I was getting annoyed at that. Now, I did like the last third of the film and the climax on the ferris wheel. We see that page burns so his character is saved but I didn't expect that he actually wrote out all that business. That was interesting. The film is a winner in my view.

Grade - B

I am a big fan of the manga, anime and Japanese movies (they did the story in 2 parts). I get that its a challenge to adapt the entire story in 100 minutes, but for awhile I thought they were doing a good job. I liked that Mia was more assertive than Misa Misa, and Dafoe as Ryuk was a brilliant choice.

The movie falls apart in Act 3 though and its mainly due to the character assasination of L. The writer/director seems to think of Light as a tragic anti-hero (when he's really just a cunt) who is only lead down the dark path by Ryuk and Mia. That's all fine, but it comes at a cost to L, who is now just a raving madman. The actor does well with the mannerisms , but he is let down by a script which reduces him to a raving lunatic. The character didn't even need to exist in this version.