Death Note Movie

I got a chance to see the movie adaptation of Death Note recently. I watched it reluctantly, because I'm pretty wrapped up in the books and they still have 3 more to go (in america) before the conclusion. Plus, I figured it'd have to be pretty chopped up to fit 12 volumes worth of story into a single movie. But I'm a weak man and couldn't resist the temptation.

As the movie started, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality. It was staying pretty faithful to the book, and it seemed to be made on a decent budget. The real test was Ryuk, the "shinigami" death god that looks like the love child of Sid Vicious and a pug. The CG version isn't exactly seamless but pretty awesome, nonetheless. Its just that the animation is a bit clunky and closer to video game quality. I think it could have been helped by a little bit of motion capturing, but the character model is so cool looking that I didn't really care.

About 40 minutes into I started wondering when they were going to pick up the pace. They'd barely started. Where's Misa? or L for that matter? There was no chance that Near and Mello were going to fit in at this point (well...that's okay) When the movie concluded with Light meeting L for the first time, I was totally lost. It felt far more like a TV pilot than a movie. With a little bit of research on this thing I call the internet, I found out that they already put out the sequel in Japan in November. It apparently concludes the story, but I'm a little surprised that they did that at the speed they were going.

I guess I could have put a spoiler warning in here. "**SPOILER** There is a nemesis and he meets the main character! The real spoiler is the movie itself. Just read the comics like we've been telling you damn it.

I give the movie 4 Star Clippies...out of...8.

-Nick