Death Note (2017) WEBRip Subtitle Indonesia MP4 & MKV

No matter what “Death Note” does, it’s going to be subjected to intense scrutiny. It’s an adaptation of a popular Japanese manga that debuted in 2003, which spawned a media empire with live-action features, a television series, a musical, video games, and an anime offering. This universe has been covered numerous times, but not from a Western perspective. Enter director Adam Wingard, fresh off his swing-and-a-miss reimagining of the “Blair Witch” franchise, who’s tasked with making sense of this strange concoction of adolescent woe and pure horror. Wingard has the right idea when it comes to screen style, but for everything that actually happens in the story, there’s not much of a movie beyond basic offerings of gore and demon visitations. As grand as the franchise has become around the world, this “Death Note” doesn’t learn from its mistakes, showing little regard for plot as the picture manufactures disorienting character leaps and a non-ending to reward those patient enough to sit through it.

Light (Nat Wolff) is a smart teenager who’s making a few bucks doing homework for others. One afternoon, Light picks up a strange book titled Death Note that’s fallen from the sky, inheriting its accompanying Dark God, Ryuk (Willem Daofe), who encourages the boy to participate in a game that offers control of the mortality of others just by writing their name and a description of their demise into the book. Experimenting with nobility as he attempts to right several wrongs with help from the book, Light is confronted with power beyond his imagination, sharing his experience with love interest Mia (Margaret Qualley), who shows similar interest in the mangling of others. Living his assassination dream, Light is soon targeted by outside interests and the limitations of the Death Note, with its many rules challenging to boy to remain true to his original vision for revenge. Also on the case is L (Lakeith Stanfield), a man raised to be a top detective, making a play to tie Light to the extreme body count, which perplexes the teen’s father, cop James (Shea Whigham).

Wingard has done well before, establishing himself with chillers such as “You’re Next” and “The Guest.” Last year’s “Blair Witch” was a failed attempt to reanimate a dead franchise, failing to do anything inventive with the found footage aesthetic, making Wingard’s return to cinematic stability for “Death Note” appealing. Working with a bigger budget and the potential for a larger audience inspires the helmer to dream bigger with this dark fantasy, and, for the first half, the picture actually develops with care. The screenplay is blunt with introductions, but cutting to the chase is generally a good thing, hurrying Light to his first meeting with Ryuk, an apple-munching god who lives to toy with his chosen few, delighting in the madness he creates when the book is opened and the killing begins. A shadowy creature with porcupine quills, Ryuk is a striking creature, voiced with maniacal glee by Dafoe, who walks away with the movie’s most enjoyable performance, getting “Death Note” up and running with real promise.

The killer book has pages of rules, but “Death Note” only pays attention to a few of them, focusing on Light’s interest in using Ryuk’s toy to turn himself into a deity (his cult is called “Kira”) with help from Mia, who really gets a charge out of the Death Note’s possibilities, serving up criminal victims deserving of slaughter as the pair feverishly cook up “Final Destination”-style murders. Wingard’s in his element here, trying to implement as much screen style as possible, deploying sweeping, twisting cinematography to cover the madness, using “Death Note” as a director’s reel for future blockbuster employment (he’s helming “Godzilla vs. Kong” for 2019). The movie looks good, but it’s difficult to enjoy pretty pictures when the story starts to slip away from the production, with rough editing speeding up events and relationships, including Light’s immediate trust with Mia, showing off the book and its homicidal powers right after they connect at school, straining what little logic is present here.

“Death Note” evolves into a detective thriller in its second half, bringing in L and his masked presence, adding character details that will only make sense to fans of the source material. Stanfield is capable (unlike Wolff, who’s wooden as Light), and the character is interestingly fragile, but as the movie unfolds, it becomes clear that Wingard can’t handle the workload, losing the primal drive of the story to winded subplots and character motivations that need more time to marinate, while the mystery of the book doesn’t deepen, it just becomes a chance to add superfluous twists to an already overstuffed tale. There’s not much of an ending to “Death Note,” which leaves itself open for sequels, with Wingard unwisely choosing to leave viewers with a tease for future conflict when he hasn’t achieved much tension in the first chapter.