Death Note: Review

I can't believe I ever thought Adam Wingard was a good director. This honestly feels like it was directed by a 13-year-old tumblr edge lord. It's all gothic style with shit attempts at dark humor but it's lacking in any sense of thematic weight other than what is blatantly stated by its repulsively annoying mouth-piece characters. Wingard has insisted that this is not a direct adaptation but rather a reinterpretation a la Scorsese's The Departed. But it's hard to accept it as such when it seems like the film is constantly trying to be the like the anime. Now, I don't know a ton about the anime, I really only have a surface-level knowledge but I definitely know that the characters are better than they are here. With every progressing scene, the characters only seemed to become more stupid and I failed to understand anything they did. At times it seems Death Note is trying to be goofy gory B-movie schlock and then the next it seems like it wants to dig into something deeper, but it never goes anywhere remotely satisfying. The result is a maddeningly lazy and empty disaster that had me begging for a sweet release. (2/10)

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