Death Note : 3 of 5

Although this movie came out in 2006, I somehow managed to miss downloading a fan-subbed version of the film, even though I was already a huge fan of the Death Note manga. Now that I've been watching the anime, and with the complete story fresh on my mind, I was really excited to see this special one-night local showing of this live-action version at the theater! Unfortunately, the experience was both good and bad. I was really expecting to see the movie in Japanese with subtitles, but instead they showed the dubbed version (I'm hoping both will be released by Viz soon). The dub was interesting since they used the same voice actors from the anime, but it's still a sucky dub that caused lots of audience laughter. Speaking of the audience, that was my other complaint - it was like being at an anime convention, complete with a little cosplay and homemade T-shirts! Of course, I love and respect that stuff, but I wanted to really get into the film without hearing the girls squeal at the first sight of L. The movie itself was cool, though, and really captured the story well. Of course, there are major departures from the manga plot, but some of them are actually more dramatic and possibly even improve on the original! The major difference is the role of Light's girlfriend Shiori (before Misa enters the story), which comes to a chilling climax along with the wife of the FBI agent! I also enjoyed the final scenes of the film with the first meeting of Light and L, since it sets up the next movie so well (only the first few volumes of the manga are covered in this film). The movie has a bit of a tokusatsu feel, which is fine with me, especially because the CG version of Ryuk is a bit old-school, so it feels a little like a TV show. But overall, the film is definitely worth watching again in Japanese, so I can't wait for the DVD release!