Death Note Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: An idealistic genius finds a supernatural notebook that causes anyone whose name is written in it to die.

Review: You may recall me touching on this franchise briefly in my top 10 TV show episodes review. Based off the incredible manga, "Death Note" is one of my all-time favorite franchises out there! From the moment I read the first chapter in the Shonen Jump magazine I was intrigued, but it was the anime that had me addicted. While the movies are good, I do want to point out that the anime gives a more complete story while exploring the characters significantly more thoroughly. The story was/is so original and creative that it captivates and enthralls the audience in such a way that you await more entries with enthusiastic anticipation.

For those unfamiliar with this fantastic series, the plot is that a brilliant high schooler (he starts in college for the films), named Light, played by my favorite Japanese actor Tatsuya Fujiwara, discovers the Death Note: a supernatural notebook that will kill anyone whose name is written in it. Also, the Death Note has various rules in order to use it properly which contributes to aspects of the story through its limitations and powers like needing to know a person's name and face; the Death Notes actually belong to beings called Shinigamis which are like Grim Reapers to westerners. Once Light discovers the authenticity of the notebook's power, he takes it upon himself to rid the world of evil as he sees it. Light is accompanied on his journey by the notebook's shinigami, Ryuk, whom is invisible to anyone except those who touch the notebook. Ryuk makes for a great foil to Light often giving him a false sense of security and offering moral insight on Light's decisions. As Light's body count skyrockets he catches the attention of the public who suspect someone is out there doing all of this, thus creating the alter ego: Kira. Likewise, the police around the world suspect that all these deaths are more than a coincidence which leads to the introduction of L, the world's greatest detective, played perfectly by Kenichi Matsuyama. L is a mysterious genius who uses his vast intellect and adeptness for logic to determine that Kira is in Japan. In an awesome display of bravado, L stages a television broadcast in the Kanto region of Japan pretending it is broadcasting worldwide in order to challenge Kira to unknowingly kill a body double who was a prisoner scheduled for execution. Confirming L's suspicions, Kira must be someone living in that portion of Japan which narrows down the list of suspects considerably. This is one of the highlights of the whole franchise as it establishes how great L is while setting the stage for the cat and mouse game between Light and L as Light tries to kill L and L gets closer to uncovering the true identity of Kira. The head of the task force to investigate Kira is, in fact, Light's father which leads to L's next clue, because he has concluded that whoever Kira may be has access to police records a regular citizen would not. So while L and the task force work together, L quietly has enlisted the FBI to investigate those in the Kanto region with access to police files and their families. With some aid from Ryuk, Light realizes he's being monitored by the FBI as he hatches a plan to eliminate all the FBI agents. I never understood why Light was so hasty to get rid of the FBI agents, but I guess he assumed they'd catch on or he hoped he'd kill L in the process or something. Through an elaborate scenario, Light discovers the identity of the agent following him only to prepare his next scheme to use this agent, named Raye, to unwittingly write the names of the other agents on paper from the Death Note. Unbeknownst to Light was that Raye's fiance, Naomi Misora, had been following Raye suspecting his strange behavior because she too was a former FBI agent. Misora suspects that Kira must have been one of the people Raye was following and quickly determines that individual to be Light. At the same time, L discovers that the timetable in which Kira kills fits that of a college kid's schedule. L also suspects Light because he was the only individual being investigated by the FBI that fits the personality of Kira. This leads to surveillance cameras being installed in Light's house as Misora confronts Light revealing she believes he's Kira. Using an infamous bag of potato chips to hide a TV to supply him with names of criminals to kill, Light manages to throw off L while he devises a plan to uncover Misora's real name and eliminate her. The film comes to a climax as Light uses the Death Note to heartlessly sacrifice his girlfriend, Shiori, in an attempt to clear his name and to force Misora to kill herself. Since few would believe someone could be so evil, and because none of the investigators know how Kira is able to kill so easily, they believe Light and even want his help on the investigation. However, L remains skeptical and suspects the potato chip ruse. We finally see that a character lurking in the background receives her own Death Note as the film ends with L and Light about to square off in the ultimate battle of intellect.

Now, while I enjoy the films for their own merits, there were aspects to the story and production that I feel are weaker that the anime/manga that is worth mentioning. Eh, I can see why they chose to make Ryuk in CGI since his character would have been hard to create as a costume and makeup, but the CGI could have been better and looks too cartoony. Although Mr. Fujiwara does a great job playing such an interesting character, it is sometimes hard to overlook that ridiculous hairdo he has in the two films! The film plays up the angle that Light feels the justice system has failed and that only through him can a just world be created. I prefer the anime's implication that Light could not accept that he was a murderer like the people he hated so he reconciled this fact by convincing himself that his murders were acceptable because he was the "god of the new world." In fact, much of Light's arrogance and megalomaniac tendencies were toned down, and when major scenes from the manga/anime arose, his change in personality felt out of place. However, since the film's tried to create their own image of Light, I can understand their approach to make him more widely sympathetic rather than tragic. Obviously Misora's character is all messed up and exaggerated since they needed to create some kind of breaking point to split the films up. It just sucks because Misora's death is one of the darkest moments in the series and gave us a glimpse with how far Light had already fallen by that point. The addition of Shiori was weak and unnecessary since we don't need her to explain to the audience that Light's actions are bad. Besides the fact that Ryuk and L cover this aspect, Light's morality and actions are meant to be studied by the audience to determine how you feel personally; we don't need someone constantly saying what he's doing is wrong.

Setting aside my complaints, this film stands alone strongly, able to touch on the major plot elements from the earlier parts of the manga/anime. Its changes are acceptable and can give audiences more of a reason to follow the different mediums of Death Note since they each have different paths and aspects they emphasize more than the others. The acting is solid as the beloved characters are brought to life splendidly, but some of the extras do overact when dying of the heart attacks. The pacing does feel rushed at times, but they have a lot of material to cover and even then the film is two hours long which you will not even notice.  But of course, the main highlight of the film is the compelling story, edge of your seat thrills, creativity and originality. I highly recommend watching these films, but I would say start with the manga or anime first since they will give you better insight in regards to every facet of the story.

Notable Moment: When the detectives first meet with L and see his quirkiness first hand.

Final Rating: 8/10

Storage 24 Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A group of people become trapped in a storage facility at the same time an alien creature has seemingly been unleashed.

Review: Ugh, I'm running out of ways to say this, but, yet again, we have tremendously wasted potential. When I see a good movie I think of all the great things that happened. When I see a bad movie I usually laugh at how pitiful it is. But when I see a mediocre film, all I can think about is how much better things could have been whether it be with the story, presentation, or direction. I guess I'll start off with the good things again since I'm falling into a pattern here: the single best aspect to the film is the alien itself. Now, I do wish they had left it more ambiguous whether or not it was an alien or not since that could have made the ending feel more like a twist, but I suppose it's forgivable. I mean, with the setting being a storage facility, they could have made it seem like someone locked it in there or it was an experiment or just whatever. Likewise, I did think a storage facility was an interesting and somewhat original choice for a setting and added some good ideas even if they weren't fully utilized. Anyway, choosing to make the alien with practical effects was a wise decision and the creature effects did look pretty good. Unfortunately, there were many sprinkles of shitty CGI that takes you out of it. For some reason they also decided to make the mouth completely CGI which is a huge distraction from an otherwise solid costume and makeup. I don't know about anyone else, but you may be getting the idea how much I hate CGI especially since 90% of the time it looks terrible. The acting was believable enough despite some shoddy moments, but I felt the characters were dealing with the situation far too casually until a radical shift toward the end. The pacing was good since we had a light introduction to the characters and then immediately jumped into the action. There was this '50s B-movie vibe that I felt was a nice touch even if it was completely unintentional; it's hard to explain, but there was just something to the presentation that felt like a throwback, or I could be dreaming. Lastly, the ending was a cool final touch as the cast barely survives the encounter with the alien only to realize a full-fledged invasion is underway. As for the bad or just mediocre aspects to the film beyond what I've mentioned: the worst for me was no point to the alien whatsoever. Let me clarify, the alien didn't seem to have a goal or purpose except to run around and pick people off sporadically. When you consider the ending, it's like uh, okay, what are you doing wasting your time, buddy? Why does the alien kill people so slowly instead of efficiently like an invading soldier would? Why is it confused by toy dogs and other bullshit? Shouldn't it already know what to expect from humans? We could look at it a different way and assume that the aliens are invading in order to find the specific alien that's terrorizing the characters, but that seems a bit of a stretch, and I don't want to give the script more credit than it's due. Although it is worth noting that it's implied the alien escaped from a downed plane and is hiding out in the storage facility; doing a shitty job hiding that's for sure. The other major detractor is that the characters suck, plain and simple, and the movie doesn't even have the decency to kill the one character I wanted to die most of all! That's virtually unforgivable in a horror film. The drama is that the main guy, Charlie, has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Shelley, for no discernible reason, and he's going to the storage place to pick up his stuff with his best friend, Mark. Charlie is mostly likable, but he's such a whiney bitch and far too forgiving of Shelley especially after she tells him how little he means to her. This should come as no shock, but Shelley is dumping Charlie for Mark with whom she has been cheating on Charlie with; seriously, easing up on the shifty-eyes might have made this slightly less predictable. Mark is presented more as the bad guy and we are meant to pointlessly sympathize with Shelley for whatever reason. Nice try. While Mark gets what's coming to him, that dumb bitch Shelley lives! Are you fucking kidding me?! Thankfully, they had the sense to let the best looking and nicest girl, Nikki, played by the sultry Laura Haddock, live; now why couldn't she have been the hero? It was also so weird when Mark suddenly shifts into crazy mode and doesn't care if anyone lives. I felt like a little bit of the writer's life was seeping into the story...wait a minute! Mark...cheating...sad, emo boyfriend...did Tommy Wiseau write this?! Eh, couldn't there have been more to the characters than this cliched lover's spat? It would have been cool if the storage facility was actually the alien ship or maybe make someone punch the alien and say, "Welcome to Earth!" Oh wait. Overall, this isn't necessarily a bad film, it's just bland and offers nothing we haven't seen a million times at this point. This is one of those circumstances where you can watch the trailer and you pretty much watched the film. I'd say watch this movie if you feel so inclined, but it is incredibly forgettable and could have been so much more.

Notable Moment: When the alien is running along the storage walls. It's a decent looking effect, makes for a nice trailer shot, and successfully makes the alien appear intimidating.

Final Rating: 5.5/10

Infection Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: An understaffed hospital is given an unwanted patient that appears to be infected with some new, horrible disease.

Review: I struggled with how to approach this film because it is not only weird, but it has a message that doesn't necessarily belong in a horror film or at least in the manner it was presented. This film is actually an expanded version of an episode from the "Tales of the Unusual" TV show which you may recall my review of the movie for that particular show. Essentially the heart of the story, or at least the meaning, is a societal critique of Japan's healthcare system. I never saw the episode itself, but if it's anything like this movie I'd hate to see a cheaper version. While I can appreciate the attempt to reach the audience, there was no subtlety or deeper meaning to be pondered. We are shown an over the top scenario of the characters being unfit, overworked, and underfunded. The film tries way too hard to beat this fact into your head that it's almost insulting...it's like, "we get it!" The only thing the audience is left to wonder about was some monster or whatever running about which is supposed to represent a number of things while the "infection" itself is meant to represent guilt; the problem is this is also painfully obvious without much to speculate about. If the goal is be social commentary, you can't spell things out so clearly or else you mine as well just do a documentary or a "what if" scenario rather than a monster-movie approach. Furthermore, the story should have focused on the monster more because that would represent the discord of the healthcare system appropriately, but this is mostly overshadowed by the guilt aspect which has less to do with bad healthcare and more to do with poor judgement given the circumstances of the characters. I don't know how to fully convey it, but they just should have chosen a different path in which to explore these concepts like a drama. This is not to say the film is entirely bad as it does get some things right. The mystery is played up interestingly even if it all leads to nowhere-land. I do prefer the minimalist approach to the effects when they knew they didn't have the budget to back up said effects. There are some nuances and details that I appreciated from many of the actors that made the characters feel more real; likewise, the acting is decent from most while a bit idiotic from others. But the best part about the film was the incredibly attractive nurses! You know, I seem to constantly find myself praising nurses and schoolgirls! What can I say, I am a man of predictable tastes. Anyway, the nurses were definitely a highlight as they helped ease my way through the boredom. On the other hand, this film fails in numerous regards beyond the story elements I've already addressed. There are virtually no scares and a decently creepy-looking hospital set is wasted tremendously. There are multiple throwaway plotlines that were clearly used for padding since they amount to absolutely nothing. There is one character in particular that was added for no clear reason except as a transitional shot; he never contributes to the story, and there seems to be a buildup to something only for him to suddenly appear dead. Even though this is supposed to be some kind of monster movie, you would not imagine how boring and slow the pacing is with the action spread far too thin. Finally, the most egregious offense is none other than a nonsensical ending! You have probably noticed my loathing for shitty endings, and how much they influence my rating, and this ending felt like an afterthought. We are left to wonder if anything we have watched actually happened only to be thrown for another loop as we are then left to wonder what the fuck is happening plain out. For a film that barely attempted to disguise it's meaning, you'd think they would then provide a straightforward ending to leave you focused on the greater implications of the themes but nope. With the good and bad weighed I suppose this film worked out to be in mediocre territory. I like the outside the box presentation, but other than that, there isn't much on the positive side unless you want to drool over the nurses. This film suffered from a lack of focus, lack of horror elements and scares, and an unnecessarily stupid ending. I'd say it's worth a view if you're remotely interested in the plot, but understand what you're getting yourself into. This probably should have stayed a TV show episode since it simply does not work as a full-length film.

Notable Moment: When the head nurse is lurking in the shadows unbeknownst to one of the younger nurses. It's the only remotely scary moment, and given how late it comes, I'm too bored to even care!

Final Rating: 5/10

Two of the better looking nurses: