Director: Shûsuke Kaneko
Running time: 141 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 12A
Genre: Adventure/Crime/Drama
UK Release date: 4th July 2008
Re-watched on Sky+ Sunday 6th November 2011.
PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.
Following directly on from the first film, ‘Death Note’, this film continues the story of Light Yagami and his association with Ryuuk, one of the Gods of Death. Even longer and an even more complicated plot than the first one, this movie will really test your powers of concentration as you plough through 2 hours and 21 minutes of subtitles. It’s worth it though because I enjoyed this one slightly more. Yes, it’s way too long, but it’s never boring with all those plot twists. I’ll tell you more after this brief summary.
Light Yagami has now infiltrated the team investigating the mysterious deaths of many criminals worldwide perpetrated by ‘Kira’. The team is lead by a young genius who calls himself ‘L’. Meanwhile, a young TV presenter, Misa Amane, is presented with a second Death Note book by another God of Death, Rem. She is a fan of Kira’s work and decides to use the book to find him. Calling herself ‘Kira II’, she causes panic at a TV station and eventually Kira is revealed to her. She is in awe of him and the pair makes a pact and joins forces. Misa Amane has the ability to see a person’s real name and Light wants to use this ability to discover the identity of his nemesis, ‘L’. But is ‘L’ too clever for them? Well, I’ll leave it there; with two ‘Gods of Death’ involved I don’t want to take any chances with the Spoiler Police today.
A really well made film but, again, the animation of the ‘Gods’ didn’t look too great on TV; maybe it was better on the big screen. Decent performances all round, particularly from; Tatsuya Fujiwara as Light Yagami, Takeshi Kaga as Soichiro Yagami (his father), Erika Toda as Misa Amane and Ken'ichi Matsuyama as the eccentric genius ‘L’.
Again dealing with the subject of justice, I thought this film raised some very interesting questions. Although no real conclusions are drawn and it does tend to concentrate more on the characters than the issues it raises, I still found it an interesting watch. There is very much a fantasy element in the film, without which it could not have worked, and so be prepared to suspend reality for a while, but if you’ve watched the first film you’ll already know this. Over all, I found it an intelligent fantasy crime drama with maybe a few too many plot twists and a tad over-long, but still quite enjoyable. Many threads from the first film are neatly tied up and so I’m happy to deem it… Recommended.
My score: 7.9/10
IMDb Score: 7.4/10 (based on 5,103 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0810827/
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FAVOURITE QUOTES:
Misa Amane: How could I ever face Light?
Ryuuk: Face? He likes your face.
Rem: Yagami Light, you will manage to kill a Shinigami. In fact, you are the Devil.
L: All the Death Notes shall be left with me.
Ryuuk: You ain't gonna use 'em? That's just lame.
LINKS:
Official Site: http://deathnote.viz.com/
Trailer:
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1 comment:
I remember watching this and the first death note film back to back on Film4, finishing at about 3am. It was worth it, brilliant review. There's also a spin-off film about L and his last 21 days, but it isn't good. brilliant review
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