About an hour into Netflix’s Death Note, I wondered: why am I still watching this?

The answer was obvious: I love the source material. The manga, the animation, the original live action – Death Note is one of my favorite pulp stories of the last two decades – which follows the tale of L and Light, two young brilliant teenage minds playing cat and mouse around a supernatural book, the Death Note, that allows you to kill anyone by simply writing their name within.

I really wanted to like this Netflix adaptation as I had just finished the manga. But from the opening scene, the tone switches from a detective noir story to an angst-ridden teenage revenge/action yarn. A truly uninspired Americanization that makes you feel like a vulture late to the carcass.

Here, the original hyperbolically intelligent characters and supernatural elements are exchanged for supposedly “grounded” characters that are more “relatable”. Unfortunately, there’s no one worth caring for, let alone rooting for, which is a shame considering the original story’s impressive feet is to make you cheer on the anti-hero, despite all the (bad) people he kills via the Death Note.

Don’t get me wrong – the actors and direction aren’t bad, considering what they’ve been given. It’s even shot well. But aside from streamlining the Death Note rules, which are convoluted, the changes to the story are uninspired and cloudy at best. Why Seattle? Why dumb down the characters? Why force in a love story? Was the point to reflect on teenage shooters in the modern age?

WHAT COULD'VE BEEN

Another questionable choice was how they treated the shinigami, Ryuk – a god of death who can only be seen by those that touch his Death Note. In the original, he’s a bored god, fascinated by humans. The Americanization turns him into a horror trope stuck in the shadows – which not only guts the original’s unique philosophy but makes you doubt the filmmaker’s confidence in their own CG design (or maybe they were just cutting corners?)

It might sound like I’m drumming that old tired argument of which is better, the original or the adaptation. Regardless, it’s a shame that the filmmakers missed the opportunity to adapt this fun, break-neck paced story from the Japanese culture to the American. Imagine: a Judeo-Christian angel or demon taking the place of Ryuk who could be played by an actor with no special effects.

Not only could you keep the subtextual philosophy (gods don’t care about humans; we’re on their own) but you’d save all that money on special effects. Then you could adjust the story from the Eastern influence toward the Western and adapt to the differences of culture – from how good and evil are defined, to what control versus out of control may mean, and how ego plays into all of that. 

Instead, we’re left with an emotional paint-by-the-numbers narrative that numbs the intellect with an unforgettable action flick.