Anna Daniels
How badly did Netflix’s adaptation of Death Note fail? Let’s count all the ways. First, it shifts the action from Japan to Seattle and casts a non-Asian as Light Nagami, whose name is anglicized to Light Turner (Nat Wolff). Seattle has a huge Asian population so it would’ve made total sense for the main character to remain, well, Asian. But no. Hollywood’s whitewashing problem rears its racist head once again.
Second, Death Note warps the source material’s nuanced plot that revolves around morality and how far people will go before their own integrity is compromised by their bad decisions. Instead, the movie veers quickly into high school romance territory with the introduction of Mia (Margaret Qualley), to whom Light reveals his powers because he has a crush on her. Major cringing here.
Then there’s the dialogue, which is Hallmark tween comedy hokey. However, when the violence gets going, the film turns into a gory horror movie that’s at complete odds with everything else that’s been set up to that point. And among all this, Death Note also ends up being terribly boring. That alone is enough to make it one of the worst Hollywood anime adaptations of all time, especially when taking into account the dynamic source material.
Written by: Looper
