If you can put aside the non-cliffhanger ending, Death Note makes a decent movie. It rearranges the story quite a bit, however, so fans of the manga are probably not going to be happy. At the beginning of the movie, Light has already found the Death Note and has begun to use it. This skips the whole part about Light being bored and disillusioned with the world, but he does have a run-in with a criminal that sets up his motivation. Actually, it seems a little too convenient. Light looks up this criminal, finds him in a bar, and overhears the guy literally saying that he killed a girl, that he doesn't care, and no one can put him in jail. Light dashes out, throws his law book in the trash, and immediately finds the Death Note sitting on the ground.
The Death Note gives Light the power to kill the criminals that the law cannot. The owner of a Death Note can kill another person by simply writing down the name of that other person while thinking of their image. It turns out there are quite a few more rules to the notebook than that, all of which serve to shape the story of the movie. One of these rules makes up one of the key moments in the movie, and it also served to be one of the biggest departures from the anime. Without giving away too much, the scene is a bit confusing, because the rule states that you cannot make a person kill another person through the Death Note. Yet it seems exactly that happens.
Of course, you can't replicate hand drawn art as live characters to everyone's satisfaction, but I do have to say that Light didn't seem quite young enough here. Maybe that's part of the reason Light is in college and not high school as in the manga. But one person in Death Note who is absolutely brilliant is Kenichi Matsuyama who plays L. He matches the mannerism and quirkiness of the character almost too well. As for Ryuk, of course he looks the part, but he looks better in some scenes that in others. Sometimes the CG work just clashes too much with the live action, and Ryuk ends up looking too much like a cartoon. You want less Roger Rabbit here and more scary and gothic, I think.
You get your choice of dubbed English voice or Japanese audio with subtitles. You may recognize some voice actors from the English dub of the anime. I did too, and not being a big fan, quickly switched over to the original. At least you have the choice though. You'll also get a good set of short interviews and snippets of video of the making of Death Note. It's a quick little set of extras with no real meat to it, but it's still interesting to have.
