REVIEW: Death Note (2017)

Death Note might just be the best comedy of 2017. It might sound like I'm joking or just being smarmy, but I simply refuse to believe that the impeccable sense of comedic timing in director Adam Wingard's direct-to-Netflix adaptation of the classic anime/manga series was nothing more than a happy accident. If you want to laugh, and I mean really laugh, then I can't recommend this movie enough. Stop reading, get a nice buzz going, and go watch it right now. If you're looking for a more true-to-the-source adaptation, however, well... I haven't seen or read the original Death Note, but something tells me it's less laugh-out-loud hilarious than what I just watched.

The plot follows the insufferably-named Light Turner (Nat Wolff), a bumbling moron who comes into the possession of a mysterious book known as the Death Note. As the book's keeper, the mysterious death god known as Ryuk (portrayed by Jason Lyles and voiced by the magnificent Willem Dafoe), explains, whosoever has their name written within the Note will die in whatever manner the writer chooses. Things start simply enough, with Light testing the book's capabilities on a school bully (and later the man who killed his mother), but soon escalate, as Light (along with his girlfriend, Mia, played by Margaret Qualley) begin enacting large-scale vigilante justice on terrorists, drug traffickers, and child molesters. Drunk off of their own power, the two hide behind the pseudonym "Kira", painting their school-shooter-esque antics as the work of a mysterious demigod. This attracts the attention of an enigmatic detective known only as L (Lakeith Stanfield), and thus begins a convoluted game of cat and mouse run by some of the most boldly idiotic characters ever written.

The most immediately striking thing about this film is probably the cast, for obvious reasons. In the original Death Note series, Light "Turner" was originally Light Yagami and his father "James" was originally named Soichiro. Really, the only thing that carried over from the original story was Ryuk, and surprise, he's by far the best thing here (though that's moreso due to how wonderful Willem Dafoe is than the obvious ties to the property's Eastern roots). There's been a lot of controversy and criticism surrounding this film, as it's been accused of "whitewashing" a foreign property. This film has a lot of problems, but changing the backdrop from Japan to Seattle is the least of them. It's essentially a non-issue here, especially since Japan does this sort of thing to Western properties literally all the time and no one seems to care. Death Note isn't hilariously bad because Light is played by a white guy or because L is portrayed by a black guy; no, Death Note is bad because the characters are cartoonishly incompetent, the tone is all over the place, and the plot (while a legitimately intriguing concept) thinks it's way smarter and more nuanced than it really is.

Let's start with the cast; Nat Wolff is simultaneously the best and worst thing about this movie. Light is an awful character, a hopeless idiot with a God complex who is way too eager to toy around with the Death Note, a plot device that may as well be made of red flags (seriously, the only way this object could be more of a bad omen is if it appeared to the tune of a Rod Serling monologue). At the same time, he's a major part of why the comedy (both intentional and unintentional) works as well as it does here. Wolff has a knack for over-exaggeration; everything he does, he does to the rafters. When he's meant to be scared, he shrieks like a little girl. When he's feeling edgy, he glares like Anthony Perkins at the end of Psycho. This is a movie that is meant to explore ideas like the frailty of human life and the moral quandry of using death to make the world a better place, yet Wolff treats the whole thing like a mid-90's Jim Carrey vehicle. Subtlety escapes him and the film is better off for it.

Then we have L, played by Lakeith Stanfield. He tries very hard to fill the role of "snarky oddball who is by far the smartest man in the room", yet just comes off like the only non-white kid at a high school anime club meeting. He provides an entirely different comedic angle than Light, rattling off pseudo-intellectual zingers like a preteen who just discovered internet memes and nihilism. He wears a hoodie and face mask that marketing execs might describe as "urban hacker chic" and, for reasons that escape me, perches on every chair he comes across like he's about to frog-splash the Fabulous Moolah at Summerslam. Every aspect of this character, from his appearance to his mannerisms, is meant to make us think "what a mysterious nonconformist", yet he just comes off like the kind of kid that would wear a trilby and cape to class. The kind of kid who claims to be "part of Anonymous" and buys all of his clothes at Hot Topic and Spencer's Gifts. You know exactly the kind of kid I'm talking about. L is that kid.

There's also Mia, a character who, as far as I can tell, is so different from her manga counterpart that she may as well be an original creation altogether. Margaret Qualley actually does a fairly decent job with what she's given, nicely selling that gradual shift from edgy high school girl to total psychopath. This character's issues all lie less within the performance and much moreso within the story; it's made very clear from early on that she's totally unhinged and should never be let anywhere near something as potentially dangerous as the Death Note, yet Light just keeps on trusting her again and again and again. Adolescent lust aside, to any young men reading this, take note; if a girl suggests you use a magical tome to murder your own father, she's probably bad news. You should dump her and cut off all communication, and you should definitely not let her continue using said evil book (that is, need I remind you all, capable of killing literally anyone the user desires).

The only legitimately good part of the cast is, you guessed it, Willem Dafoe as Ryuk. Aside from the base concept, this is the only part of this movie that works as intended; Dafoe is both menacing and mysterious and the film suffers for not giving him a bigger focus. He's not only the best actor performance-wise, he's the most interesting character. You could cut out Mia and L and have the majority of the character interactions be Light dealing with an invisible death god breathing down his neck, tempting him with great and terrible power, and I honestly believe the movie would be stronger for it. The special effects are also quite good for a low-spectacle Netflix release; Ryuk looks perfectly accurate to the source material and the gore is (as far as I can tell) more or less entirely practical. That's one genuine point I can give this movie, it uses its resources well. Ryuk is a great creature design, but he's also kept in shadow and/or out of focus, helping to sell the special effect while creating a sense of atmosphere. The movie stays within its means and understands what it has, so no part of it looks in any way cheap or unprofessional. The Dawson's Creek level cast and cinematography put a damper on things, sure, but for the most part this is a fine-looking mess of a movie.

At the end of the day, would I recommend Death Note? It's stupid, it's silly, and it's altogether an unnecessary cash-grab that really didn't need to be made. It's full of lofty ambitions and bloated subtext, all conveyed through some truly awful performances working off of a truly awful script. Would I recommend Death Note? Yes, absolutely. I know this movie is bad, I know I just tore it apart, and I know the phrase "so bad it's good" gets tossed around a lot these days; so many SyFy Originals aspire to that title, confusing ironic quality with a total lack of effort, but Death Note is one of those few bad movies that truly gets it. A movie doesn't get to be "so bad it's good" simply by being terrible. The viewer needs to feel a genuine sense of effort, that an attempt was made to make something good. The idea that a group of people legitimately tried their best, and this was the result. You have bad movies like Dragonball Evolution, that are bad because not a single person involved cared in any way, shape, or form. They're not "so bad they're good", they're so bad they're bad and the whole thing ends up being a painful experience for everyone involved. But when you get a movie like Death Note, a movie that is a complete and utter (and above all, genuine) mess, you can't help but laugh along at the magnificent failure taking place before you. Death Note is one of the funniest movies I've seen in recent memory and I foresee it becoming an enthusiastic go-to on many a bad movie night to come. By all means, go check it out.

REVIEW: Help! I'm a Fish! (A Fish Tale)

Let's talk low-profile animation. Movies that are decidedly B-listers (at best) when compared to your usual Disney/Dreamworks moneymakers, assuming they even make it to theaters in the first place. The kind of movies you always see taking up space in the kids section of the bargain DVD rack, collecting dust until some nearsighted-but-well-meaning relative picks it up as a last minute birthday gift. These kinds of movies are such a fascinating mixed-bag in terms of both quality and content, especially when you factor in foreign films. Little cultural differences and regional influences in art direction can inform the overall look and feel of a film, running the gamut from something like The Little Prince to something like Ivan the Incredible. And speaking of Ivan the Incredible, today's obscure animated feature comes to us from the country of Denmark; regardless of what some of the marketing may imply, Help! I'm a Fish proves that Danish animation doesn't necessarily have to be a nightmarishly incoherent CGI fever-dream.

The story follows a rambunctious boy named Fly (Jeff Pace), his little sister, Stella (Michelle Westerson), and their brilliant-but-stuffy cousin, Chuck (Aaron Paul). After sneaking out to go fishing, the kids stumble upon the lair of an eccentric marine biologist (Terry Jones) who has developed a formula that turns humans into sea creatures. After Stella is accidentally transformed into a starfish and lost beneath the waves, it's up to Fly and Chuck to drink the potion and rescue her themselves. Fortunately for them, the professor also developed an antidote, which falls into the fins of a common pilot fish. After imbibing some of the potion, the fish (voiced by the late Alan Rickman) develops a humanlike intellect. Now calling himself Joe, he seeks to establish an deep-sea society of intelligent, talking fish (of which he is the unquestioned ruler). With only 48 hours until their change becomes permanent, it's up to the kids to rescue Stella, get the antidote away from Joe, and return to their human selves before it's too late.

On the surface, Help! I'm a Fish is fine enough. The voice acting is quite solid for an English dub and the delightfully-dated soundtrack of bouncy Scandanavian-style pop is loads of fun. It's got a pleasing visual style and a host of memorable character designs, in addition to being legitimately very well-animated for what it is. For a kids' movie about a magical science potion that turns people into fish, the script is surprisingly tight, setting up and foreshadowing important plot elements ahead of time so that everything flows in a sensible, coherent way. Functionally-speaking, it's a well-made movie, but that's not what made Help! I'm a Fish stand out to me. The thing that really struck me as interesting was just how dark and dramatic this film was willing to get.

The first thing worth mentioning is the villain, Joe. The film establishes a surprisingly mature metaphor for dictatorships; he who controls knowledge controls the populace. Joe is the keeper of the "magic potion", in addition to being the smartest thing under the sea. He controls who is worthy of the gift of sentience, as well as how smart they're allowed to get. He grants his followers enough mental capacity to speak and follow orders, but purposely keeps them duller than himself so they have no other option but to implicitly believe everything he says. While the metaphor is a little on-the-nose in this case, it's still a wildly original angle for a movie like this to pursue, given how the rest of the plot unfolds.

It's also worth noting how little the film shies away from the dramatic reality of our protagonists' situation. The ticking clock element is in full effect here, and the result is surprisingly heavy. The prospect of being forced to live out ones remaining years as a jellyfish is a worrying prospect, and the level of optimism our protagonists show deteriorates more and more as the film goes on. It may sound as though I'm hyperbolizing a bit here, but the film really does get downright dreary as it approaches the final act. There's also a surprising amount of death; there's no "fish are friends, not food" sentiment to be found here, as the shark Joe recruits as his enforcer (David Bateson) casually eats a number of characters without remorse. Usually these "tough but dopey henchman" type characters end up joining forces with the heroes in the end (typically after being mistreated time and time again by the primary antagonist), but that isn't the case here. The shark is, by all accounts, unapologetically malevolent and aggressive, taking extreme pleasure in chowing down on whatever unfortunate Joe allows him to. This is a movie about three children trapped in a fledgling dictatorship where everyone in charge wants to murder them. And it's called Help! I'm a Fish. Grim as that is, I haven't even touched on the climax yet.

Without spoiling anything, let me say this; the climax to this film is pure nightmare fuel. The rest of the movie was a tad more dramatic than I expected, but it still felt like a kids' movie. A little heavier than something like Frozen, sure, but still a kids' movie. The climax is typically where all the dramatic tension in a film comes to a head, but this movie has a tonal curve like a brick wall, veering into Cronenberg-esque body-horror at one point. If the final confrontation with Joe doesn't leave little ones wetting their underoos, we're treated to a scene that commits so soundly to selling the tragedy that occurs that it almost comes off as hilarious in a really mean-spirited kind of way. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but this ending really needs to be seen to be believed. I'm all for children's entertainment that dabbles in the more macabre side of things, but the climax of Help! I'm a Fish is the stuff that "Top 10 Most Disturbing Childhood Movie Moments" clickbait articles are made of.

Suffice to say, I don't think this is a movie I'll be forgetting anytime soon. It's well put-together, well animated, and goes to some surprisingly dour places given that it's a movie about kids turning into cutesy cartoon fish. While I wouldn't necessarily go as far as to call it a hidden gem, Help! I'm a Fish is certainly a curiosity that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys outsider animation. By all means, grab some friends, dim the lights, and crack some jokes about Jesse Pinkman playing an obese kid who turns into a jellyfish. It's all just build-up to the insane punchline that is the hilariously bleak and traumatic climax that's sure to satisfy anyone who's ever asked "how did they get away with that?"

Credit and thanks go to Sparky from the "Help! I'm a Fan" fansite for the majority of screengrabs used in this Review.

REVIEW: Dunkirk

I've gotta say, I keep finding myself torn on Christopher Nolan. He's got undeniable talent as a director, but I tend to consider his work more hit or miss than the general public seems to. I'll never understand why everyone adored Inception as much as they did and I consider The Dark Knight Rises by far the weakest entry in his Batman trilogy. I love The Dark Knight as much as anyone, but I still think that, in terms of outright quality, he's yet to top The Prestige. The point I'm trying to make here is that, when I watch a Christopher Nolan film, I'm never quite sure what I'm going to get. It's a total coin-toss as to whether or not it'll sit well for me, which is one of the reasons I was so intrigued by his most recent film, Dunkirk. It was a subject matter that felt much more appropriate for a director like Clint Eastwood, so I was naturally curious to see what Nolan would bring to the table.

Taking place in 1940, after the Nazi invasion of France, the film tells the true story of the "Miracle of Dunkirk" (as Winston Churchill once put it). As the Nazis continue their march across Europe, Allied troops find themselves pushed back to the French city of Dunkirk, where they attempt to mount an evacuation. With the perimeter shrinking every day and Allied ships getting blown out of the water, the Royal Navy puts out a call to action, commandeering civilian boats to sail across the English Channel and assist in evacuating over 300,000 Allied troops. The film conveys all of this by way of three overlapping narratives; we have The Mole (following a small group of British troops attempting to escape the beach), The Sea (following an old man, his son, and their young deckhand as they sail their pleasurecraft across the Channel to assist in the evacuation), and The Air (following an RAF fighter pilot on a mission to provide air support, despite a damaged fuel gauge).

Implementing a nonlinear narrative like this is a risky move, especially in a film where the majority of the action takes place in only a small handful of locations, but the story itself remained coherent throughout (at least, moreso than a lot of other films that attempt this style of storytelling). However, my biggest issue with the film came from the near-total lack of any characterization. There's an interesting balance (or lack thereof) at play here, in which the film doubles-down on tone and atmosphere in place of character drama. This is a film that is much more about the event itself and the emotion surrounding it, rather than individual characters. Names and backgrounds are pushed to the sideline in favor of immersion; there are a handful of characters we focus on, but they're all more or less "everyman" types that could be swapped out with just about anyone else. 

The soldiers on the beach are all young men in identical uniforms, each about the same build with similar haircuts and accents. It's difficult to pick a single one out of the crowd, but it's fairly clear that this is the point. This isn't trying to be your run-of-the-mill war movie, where we follow a cadre of memorable heroes into danger and adventure. This is a movie about a tremendously bleak situation, and the characterization we get follows suit. Tom Hardy could have been any fighter pilot, Harry Styles could have been any soldier. Mark Rylance could be playing any regular guy with a boat, called into action by the powers that be. This isn't a film about the heroism of a few specific individuals, so much as it is about the extraordinary circumstances everyone who was involved found themselves in. 

The film puts all its chips on building tension, and that's something that it does incredibly well. By the time we enter the final act, the audience is well-trained to fear the sound of Luftwaffe aircraft, just as the Allied troops do. It comes off much more like an immersive experience than a movie about a historical event, presenting the situation as gray, dreary, and hopeless as it likely seemed to those who were there. We get the most dialog and characterization with our civilian protagonists on their boat, so they become the ones we feel most attached to; we want to see them reach that beach just as badly as the soldiers do. However, for as strong as the atmosphere is, the stumbling narrative focus tends to hold the film back. 

When characters die, we don't feel anything for them. On one hand, that may have been the point; in war, the casualties are many. "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic", after all. However, it really does feel like the film expects us to feel something, despite these characters having very little in the way of individual identity. Frankly, I wish that this had taken the Flags of Our Fathers/Letters From Iwo Jima approach and given each storyline its own film, telling the entire tale over the span of a trilogy. No doubt such an approach would be far more expensive, but it would give us the requisite time needed to grow attached to these characters, giving those emotional beats some true power. The film ends with Winston Churchill's famous "we shall fight on the beaches" speech; it's one of the finest speeches ever written, but the conventionally triumphant ending hardly feels earned, given the bittersweet climax and dreary tone the rest of the film carries.

Lack of investment aside, this is most assuredly a film that knows how to play to Christopher Nolan's strengths as a director. Tension is kept tight at all times, helped along by Hans Zimmer's ominous score. The cinematography is utterly gorgeous and the opening sequence establishes everything we need to know about the story, tone, and general direction of the film (as all good opening sequences do). This is one of the first films I've ever seen that has taken the subject of war and presented it almost like a horror film; there are a number of genuinely unsettling moments, all conveyed with a believable, tasteful amount of style and finesse. If there's one thing Nolan knows how to do, it's to construct a scene (especially in a visual sense), and this film is chock-full of notable moments and visuals that are still stuck in my head to this day. 

Dunkirk is an interesting film. It's unquestionably well-made, from a technical standpoint, but there still stands the question as to whether or not I'd recommend it. It's surprisingly arthouse for a big-budget war movie, especially from a mainstream director like Christopher Nolan. It all but ignores baseline aspects of filmmaking like characterization in favor of masterfully-built tension and atmosphere, resulting in a film that is incredibly effective, if this is the type of film you like to see. I suppose my advice would be to go see it, but temper your expectations beforehand. Understand you're not about to see what one might expect when they think of a World War 2 film. If something like Pearl Harbor is at one end of the spectrum, Dunkirk is at the exact opposite end. All in all, I don't regret going to see Dunkirk, especially considering I saw it in a theater with a quality sound system. It's a well-crafted experience, but I'm not sure I'd ever get excited if I found out it was airing on TV.