DEATH NOTE: R (RELIGHT: VISIONS OF A GOD)
January 9th 2010 02:26
Category: Videos
Based on the Death Note manga by: Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata
Director: Tetsuro Araki
Screenplay by: Toshiki Inoue
Starring: Brain Swaile (Light), Alessandro Juliani (L), Shannon Chan-Kent (Misa Amane), Chris Britton (SouichiroYagami), Vincent Tong (Matsuda), Michael Adamthwaite (Raye Penber), Tabitha St Germain (Naomi Misora), Louis Chirillo (Demegawa), Saffron Henderson (Sachiko Yagami), Trevor Devall (Aizawa), John Murphy (Mogi), French Tickner (Watari) & Brian Drummond (Ryuk)
Produced by: Madhouse/NTV
English Version produced by: VIZ Media LLC
Released by: Madman Entertainment
I picked this particular item up some time before I had to have my first retinal detachment operation back last year and it’s only now that I have managed to get around to watching it. Now if you are someone who has not seen the anime or read the manga on which the anime was based then you’ll no doubt be completely in the dark and wondering what on earth I’m babbling on about. Essentially Death Note is very much a morality tale, the moral involved in its unfolding drama being the maxim “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” and if you get a chance to watch the series you can see this point hammered home quite aptly. The key protagonist within the story Light Yagami, ace student and seemingly nice guy, swiftly demonstrates how even the most upright of individuals can be transformed and twisted when given the literal power of life and death.
It all revolves around a simple thing, a note book aptly called a Death Note. Originally a possession of an entity known as a shinigami or God of Death they sometimes make their way into the world of mortals and put to use, for you see anyone who ends up having their name written in the Death Note dies. Most Death Notes that have found their way into the mortal world see some use, but nowhere near the use that Light Yagami puts his. But then again it’s unlikely that previous possessors of Death Notes had the breadth of ‘vision’ that Light has, he sees this rather gothic looking book as a means of bringing forth righteous ‘justice’ upon evildoers everywhere and the tool through which he can create a new world with himself as the god of this new shiny world. Messiah complex anyone?
Apparently this time the story is meant to be seen from the perspective of the shinigami Ryuk, the Death God whose Death Note Light now owns. That particular angle doesn’t quite fit, granted the feature does open in the Shinigami realm with some nameless death god wanting to find Ryuk, who then tells this new guy a story of the time when he dropped his note book into the Human realm and things roll on from there. This particular aspect though is not developed on any further, if anything it seems to be simply a device designed to give the audience a condensed version of the entire saga.
Even though I am not a big fan of Light Yagami I still like the anime, manga and live action films, I did feel that the story they were telling was an entertaining and compelling one. A masterly crafted piece of the storytelling art that was skilfully portrayed in the various mediums in which it was shown, never once did I feel like reading or watching this story was a chore. Unfortunately for this particular feature I have to say that I cannot say that, watching this film was a veritable chore. Perhaps I was expecting too much, perhaps my hopes had been built too high by the prospect of seeing this film, either way when the dust had finally settled I was glad it was over and at the same time sadly disappointed at the whole affair.
Much of the focus of the drama in this film is centred on the struggle between Kira (Light) and L, the world’s first, second and third greatest detectives. This is a conflict of titanic intellects who I can feel safe in saying are fighting for the very future of the world as we know it. Although each of the two has their own particular view point on just what the future of that world should look like only one of them has a deity complex that would make any sane person hope that he wasn’t going to come out on top. Sad to say though that it is that individual who does triumph, Kira gets the jump on L and you are left to wonder just what the world is going to be like with someone who kills without hesitation being in charge. Totalitarian dictatorship anyone?
All this though has been told before, that’s the thing there is nothing really new here in story or plot development. If anything it would have to be said that this film is great for those who have never seen any of the other formats of this particular story, but for the fans of the anime, manga and live action it’s something of a letdown. You get the feeling that what you’re watching is nothing more than a rerun, that the only thing really new about it all is a couple of brief scenes, a new character who makes the briefest of appearances and that’s it. Certainly the production values are superb, the animation is fantastic and the voice acting is magnificent, but despite all this I still had the feeling that I had been rorted. My advice watch the original anime or read the manga, leave this one alone.
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