Death Note - Desu nôto: Light Up the New World

A belated sequel to the original DEATH NOTE trilogy, made some time later after those films. The original cast only feature in the smallest roles and at least one of them is a picture on a screen alone. Sad to say, this one's a far cry from the original films; generally it feels very much like a weak sauce imitator that plods over the same old ground without doing anything new with the premise. As before, the police are hunting owners of the Death Note diaries, and there are new villains and new heroes thrown into the mix. Sadly, the new L character is one of the most arrogant and irritating ever, and none of the supposedly shocking twists make an impact. Average at best.

As a Death Note fan, I was excited when a new film is green-lighted. It is only later when it is revealed as a sequel to Death Note: The last name. Though doubtful, I was still looking forward to see how the saga of Kira could be continued. Crafted as an original story, the first trailer looked intriguing. So how does the final product fare? Death Note: Light up the new world is a decent installment to the popular franchise, paying homage to the franchise. Although it is a sequel, it could easily be a stand-alone film with all the new characters. It may not match the standard of the first two films directed by Shusuke Kaneko but it is a step up from Hideo Nakata's L: Change the world.

The story: Set 10 years after Death Note: The last name, Shinsuke Sato (Director of Gantz) goes straight into the thrills as he opens with a killing rampage in Tokyo. He keeps the pace brisk without slowing down for character's development. The viewers will be thrust into the middle of the cat-and-mouse chase. I think it will be helpful to watch Death Note: New Generation, a mini-series that is the prequel to this. The new characters are interesting enough but nothing beats Light and L. The third act falls to Shinsuke's familiar territory. A thrilling chase followed by an action-packed climax with revelations. Some twists may be a little surprised but if you know Death Note, it wouldn't come off as a big surprise. Shinsuke directs with enough thrills to keep the film afloat. Acting is alright. The characters are fighting for their own screen time. None of the characters stand out. Even Ryuk, the iconic shinigami, has limited screen time. Music is throughout and adds to the thrills.

Overall: It may not hold a candle next to first two films in term of smartness and thrills but it is decent enough to warrant a watch. It is definitely not boring and the CGI has improved a lot. The CGI of the three shinigamis feel more realistic and organic. Is it worthy of being in the Death Note franchise? I would say a 'Yes'. It ends with a common cliffhanger and I wouldn't seeing Death Note taking a new direction. But it will have to wait until this film is deemed as successful. Meanwhile, let's see if the Hollywood remake in 2017 is worthy of its title.

The movie is set 10 years after Kira and L's conflict ended, Six notes are released to the world. The movie follows three main characters even if it feels like two. A special task force member who pursues all 6 death notes, Ryuzaki the successor of L who helps special task force and Worshiper of kira who want all 6 death notes.

The acting is decent and story overall is not that bad either,they surely had some good ideas, but fail to deliver it.

Third act is full of plot twists and revelations that just complicates the story, it seems they wanted to apply same formula for the characters here like in the original. Even forcing similar relationship L and Kira had.The problem is that characters does not have enough building till that point for what they wanted to achieve.

Those who are unfamiliar with whole death note franchise may find the story hard to follow especially with all the rules and backstory it have.

There were few mistakes that bothered me like some scenes where names are written in the Death Note and people are immediately dying instead in 40 seconds. Which means its breaking the rules of Death note.

The thing that I like the most was new Shinigamis, Cgi was improved and their design are great as well, I find them more interesting than main characters. Also it can be seen how are they trying to recreate the complexity of the original story but the main problem is that the characters are lacking depths.

it can be exciting at moments, I say give it a try only if you are a fan of the series and movies, if you loved first two movies you may also enjoy this one.

I enjoyed the previous "Death Note" movies, well at least the Japanese ones for sure. But I had no idea about the existence of "Death Note: Light Up the New World" from 2016 before late in 2019 when I was given the chance to sit down and watch it. Given my interest in the franchise from the previous movies, then of course I sat down to watch t his 2016 movie.

Turns out that the movie seemed to be lacking the same spirit and motivation that was driving the previous movies. And while they opted to go for something new here, then it just was lacking that special ingredient to make it unique, to make it feel like a proper "Death Note" movie.

Don't get me wrong, there were aspects of the movie that were nice, but the overall movie just didn't really work for me, and I found it to be a tedious and mundane ordeal to sit through. And my interest in the storyline faltered a couple of times throughout the course of the movie. But I endured and stuck with it to the end. And I can say that "Death Note: Light Up the New World" is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time around.

The characters in the movie were rather boring, to the point of being absolutely pointless and disinteresting actually. And the movie was lacking screen time for the Watchers. You know, those lovely CGI animated keepers of the Death Notes.

This felt like a weak attempt to cash in on the success of the franchise, and the storyline is a scrambled mess actually, which seems like it was written overnight because someone had to come up with something in a rush as they had acquired the funds for the movie prematurely.

While the movie has a good production quality and good special effects, it was lacking on a proper storyline, on adequate characters that you actually cared about, on the Watchers, and genuinely just lacked entertainment value in general.

"Death Note: Light Up the New World" scores a mere four out of ten stars from me.

Death Note the anime is one of the all time greatest television series, a true masterpiece and a contender for the most intelligent franchise by far.

I was always fearful to venture into the live action material and that doubled when I watched the embarrassment of Death Note (2017) I finally took a chance and watched Death Note (2006) and was thrilled at how well made it was and loyal to the original material. Sure it had tweaked a couple of parts of the storyline, but it still felt like Death Note.

The sequel was equally great and the third part was perfectly good as well, when I discovered a 4th movie had been made I questioned whether it had reached the stage they were milking it.

Following directly on from the 3rd movie, we're now 10yrs on from the original events of Kira with both Light & L deceased. The death gods have rained death notes down on the world and all hell is breaking loose. It's come down to L's successor and the surviving members of the old team to bring justice to those responsible.

This 4th movie clearly has a larger budget, the shinigami cgi is considerably better and the whole film just looks polished. It follows on perfectly and is a welcome addition to the franchise.

It has it's flaws don't get me wrong, but regardless is a great Death Note film even if it doesn't have the subtlety of the originals.

I'm not sure whether this is the end, I feel like it could continue based upon the ending but this is a decent enough send off should it not.

The Good:

Decent opening sequence

CGI has improved

Shinigami's are great

The Bad:

Some bad, dull and unlikable characters

Story is perhaps too grand for a 2hr film