ADAPTATION DEAD IN LIVE ACTION
One of the first things to keep in mind before watching the Death Note, the Hollywood version, is to not watch it at all.
The Death Note manga series is one of the best of its kind. It boasts such a huge global fan following that Hollywood director Adam Wingard was forced to flee Twitter for this trashy remake—which debuted on Netflix this month.
He’s not alone. Manga almost never succeeds as live-action film. Just ask M. Night Shyamalan— whose remake of The Last Airbender was also beyond awful. As a Japanese anime series, Death Note is an addictive psychological thriller where a super smart student, called Yagami Light develops a God-like complex after finding a book that allows him to kill people simply by writing down their names in it while remembering their faces. He finds his match in L, an unconventional master detective revered by the leaders of the world. As the story progresses, the world around them is divided into two camps. One camp supports the mysterious killer-God who knocks off all the villains of the world. The other camp believes that criminals also have a right to justice and that no individual has the right to kill. It doesn’t matter which camp you lean towards, you will find yourself on the edge as L and Yagami Light strive to outsmart each other.
In the two-hour Hollywood version, none of that comes through. Instead of streamlining subplots while retaining the essence of the story, Wingard throws logic, character development and plot right out of the window. The result is a badly crafted teenage romance with a stupid hero and a psychotic heroine (a completely useless addition)—and the compelling ‘L’ is now a crybaby.
Like so many others, Wingard doesn’t get what makes manga tick, a problem that seems as common in Hollywood as the tendency to spoonfeed the audience, whitewash Asian characters out of the script and turn eastern cultures into laughable caricatures. Luckily, Netflix allows you to go straight to the source. Bingewatch manga titles such as Attack on Titan, Naruto, Bleach, Cowboy Bebop and Sword Art Online immediately— lest you be tempted by another disastrous Hollywood remake.