I’ll have to trust the breadth and popularity of the 14-year-old “Death Note” franchise in Japan — which encompasses more than 100 issues of manga, two TV series, four live-action movies, several video games and a stage musical — that there’s something, anything, remotely interesting about its premise.
Director Adam Wingard’s American remake for Netflix is the latest anime adaptation to get mangled (and whitewashed) in translation; the new horror-thriller is cheesy, asinine, convoluted and ludicrous. On the plus side, if your eyeballs need a vigorous workout, this will have them rolling nonstop.
A leather-bound notebook with the words “DEATH NOTE” on the cover falls from the sky next to Seattle high-schooler Light Turner (Nat Wolff, “Paper Towns”), who seems pretty unfazed by the fact that a leather-bound notebook with the words “DEATH NOTE” has just fallen from the sky next to him.