 Hey guys, Jeremy here for another review. This is for Death Note. Now, this is another one that I wanted to do with my camera here. Death Note is obviously based on the popular anime that was based on the popular manga. I read the first book and I thought it was an interesting idea. I thought it was a very interesting story, just never really committed to reading the other ones, mainly because, what, they're 12 books and a little cheap. This is directed by Adam Wingard. Adam Wingard is... He's a cool director. I've got to meet him once before, and he directed The Guest, which is one of, I would say a very decent sleeper hit movie. A lot of the influences, a lot of the stylistic choices that were in that movie are definitely in this one, mainly the idea of using a lot of colors, interesting camera angles, as well as the music. He's been a little bit in the interesting area, beginning because he did the Blair Witch movie, which was bad. It was bad. I gave it a higher rating than I should have, but it was not that good. For those who don't know what Death Note is, Death Note is about a kid named Light Turner who is all of a sudden given this book called the Death Note, which is connected to this Death God named Ryuk, who basically tells him whoever's name you write into the book, the full name, they will die, depending on how you write it in the book. And it's a cool idea, and what I liked a lot about the first manga book was the character of Light and how he took something that was so absolutely crazy and out of mind perspective and addressed it with a very cynical and very collected mind and started to form ideas of what he would do with it. This Light is just a horny teenager who wants to be interested, he wants this chick to be interested in, but really it comes down to hormones and that was kind of the exact opposite of what Light Turner was from the manga. Someone actually had a really good description of the character. He said that Light is a being that would have been above the idea of sex with how he addressed the Death Note. He is more of a person who's fascinated with the idea of power than the idea of just sex in general. He's more interested in what he can do and the legacy he can leave behind and what he views as him saving the planet from all murderers, psychopaths, molesters slowly starts to turn as he becomes more, the power obviously corrupts him as well as Ryuk is playing shit games with him. And the movie doesn't, it's this girl, and honestly I would say that she's the worst part of this whole movie because it just brings the maturity down so much. But as for the good parts, William Defoe as Ryuk is amazing. What I liked a lot about what they did with Ryuk is they would actually keep him off into the background, they kind of keep him fuzzy, but he was always horrifying. Whenever you would see him, he would be terrifying looking, especially with light, like any of the ambient lights, like say police lights or side building lights would always be kind of shimmering off of him and that just gave him such an incredibly horrifying presence. Now he's not in the movie quite a lot, which some people have complained about. What I actually, I thought that they used him really well by not continuously showing him that horror was the same for me every time. Now in the manga he would appear so often that I would just be like, oh okay, it was Ryuk, but in this they show him so little and again they don't show him full on, they only show him full on a couple of times. And I like that aspect, I think they handled Ryuk the best. As for how the film is shot, Adam Winger does a really good job. He's always keeping the camera consistent, he uses a lot of dynamic angles. There's a lot of slow-mo as he used kind of oddly and again the whole idea of the teenage hormone aspect was just something that I just did not gel at all with me. L was really cool. Admittedly though, I thought that L was one of the most ridiculous parts of the manga, just the idea that this guy was so fucking smart and able to figure out everything. The manga, it was just ridiculous to me because of how much he was able to figure out, yeah I know he's a super detective, but it was still, it was a bit much for me to even believe. You know, talking about a god and whatnot. In this it made more sense just because of how streamlined it was, how stupid Light Turner was. Now there's a part where they montage through the whole idea of him killing off like 400 people. And I think maybe they did that, I think the reason why they did that is obviously for time. They're trying to fit a 12-part manga series into, or as much as they can, into a single movie. So they had to montage through bits and I knew that was the one part that would be montage. I knew it would be because why would you bother going through this part in detail, right? Now there were certain aspects that I thought were just kind of, I don't know, there was a one point where he is given, they find this forum and they're going through all these people, people are commenting on the internet saying this is a person who's done this, blah blah blah blah. And these girlfriends are like, yeah, we should kill these people. These are people who have been hurt and they want revenge. And he's like, we can't trust anything on the internet. And what I thought was so interesting is how that addressed it, like head on how stupid that aspect was. And yet it came up again later on in the film for a pivotal point. And I thought it was so stupid because they had full on addressed how ridiculous the notion of that was. And then the music. I started at the beginning with the music. I like the music, just to listen to it. For its placement it was a little odd, I'll admit. It was very strange. A lot of ambient music though was again very reminiscent of the guest as well as the hits. A lot of 80s pop rock was again from the guest. And I thought it was a cool idea. Admittedly it wasn't the best thing I could have thought of. But I still enjoyed the movie and in a whole. Now if you're a fan of the anime or the manga, then yeah, you'll be able to tear this thing to fucking shreds. But when you think about it as a film itself, it works. Does it work well? No. It doesn't, you'll hate the main characters. The girl, Light and his girlfriend, you'll hate them. Hate, hate, hate, hate them. And not in a good way. They just don't have that great development and the guy who, like, got his light. When he screams, he looks like such a little bitch. But I don't know, I think it's an okay time. I thought it had some cool horror elements. I thought it had some cool moments of Adam Wingard's work. Yeah, I can understand why you might not like it. I don't think it's the crime of this entry, as some people are saying. Honestly I'd rather watch this than Ghost in the Shell any day because Ghost in the Shell was cool visually, but it was boring. This is not boring. This is entertaining. So, anyways, in the end I will give Death Note A3 out of 7. I enjoyed it. I like the aspects of it. Again, I am a fan of Wingard's work. I will admit the guy is not without sin. But I think that he did a decent job with what he was given. Yeah, he recognized it. And that's probably something that people won't like. But it is a watchable movie. It is not absolutely atrocious garbage that some people may say it is. But in the end, that's just my opinion. You guys are free to feel what you feel. Real look cool though. I'm willing to foe. Made me really want to watch Spider-Man the first movie again. Anyways, that's all from me guys. See you next time.