Death Note the movie

[cerusee]

Well, that was quite bad. I think it would have been bad anyway, but unfortunately, the limited theater release version was a dub, and not a good dub. The English voice actors ranged from passable to "probably would have been good if they'd been recorded in the same room"; the English voices did not match the mouths of the Japanese actors, and this was painfully obvious most of the time. Many, many pieces of key information were delivered via Japanese text--none of which was translated into English. I was able to follow the plot because I knew it already, but my companions were extremely confused. One of them was unaware that Death Note is chock-full of English text, and assumed they were simply translating the text inconsistently, until I explained on the car ride home.

They changed the plot of the arc this movie covers in some key ways. The changes tied together coherently enough that I don't think I would have minded, had they done so in a manner that resulted in a good movie. Alas.

Despite it being bad, I really enjoyed it! It made me nostalgic for those days of yore when Death Note was just developing its English-language fanbase via scanlations, when it was still one of the best manga I'd ever read, before the spoilery things I shall not name, and back before it disappointed me. I loved this thing hard, and it was exciting to be in the fandom when it was young, although I forswore the fandom in fairly short order for being largely populated by pretentious dickheads.

The movie audience was a fun, noisy, young crowd--pretty much the con-going crowd, complete with L cosplayers. They were loud and obnoxious, cheered vigorously when L made his first appearance, and shouted out snarky remarks every time something particularly stupid happened or whenever something really important was conveyed via untranslated Japanese text. Since the movie was so bad, I think most of the audience (myself included) was deriving its primary entertainment from making fun of it, until an attendant came in and made everyone shut up. It's possible someone had gone and complained, but I sort of doubt that, since nobody in the audience evinced the slightest inclination to shush the theater before that. (And if they did, shame on them, because they ruined the fun of most of the people there, including my non-fandom companions.) This was not intentionally a fandom/con venue, but the zeitgeist was definitely that of a anime/manga con, and it's a pity that that was quashed.

Comments

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

Your observations make me wish I had seen it with you. Even if a film is terrible, it's always better with a lot of people who are excited about it.

And, yeah, the dub. I had forgotten about that part of it. :( I'll definitely netflix this, but probably watch it with subtitles.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to Netflix it myself, to see how much it'd improve with subtitles. I suspect not much, but you can't underestimate the soothing factor of reading the iffy dialogue as subtitles instead of listening to iffy dialogue in your native language.

I'm happy I went to see it in the theater. The crowd made the experience totally worthwhile.

[octopedingenue]

Ha! Someone else on my flist posted today about being spoiled for the Big Death and wondered if she should keep going in the series; I basically told her to drop it at the Death if not before and switch to the movies instead. I saw movie 1 in sub last year and loved it, especially in comparison to the manga, since it does such a mindfuck with Light. (My roommate watching it with me ordered me to stop using the word "sociopath" talking about him because the repeated word was losing all meaning.) I've not seen the other movies, but they cannot be more disappointing than the manga ending.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I reread volume 1 of the manga this afternoon, and man, was it ever a better execution of the concept than the movie. But I think I want to Netflix the movies, including the one I just saw dubbed, and watch them subbed; I'm sure they'd come across a lot better, and I wouldn't mind having an alternate "canon" ending to soothe the rage at the colossal pit of suck that Death Note degraded into over time.

But he is a sociopath! A megalomaniacal sociopathic mass murderer! With good hair!