NETFLIX AND KILL: DEATH NOTE (2017) **

Nat Wolff stars as a dorky high school kid who finds a magic notebook.  The evil guardian of the book (Willem Dafoe) tells him if you write someone’s name it, they’ll instantly die in the way you described.  At first, he and his girlfriend (Margaret Qualley) try to use it for good by killing criminals under the guise of an avenging angel named Kira.  His detective father (Shea Whigham) is quickly put on the case and joins forces with an unconventional profiler (Lakeith Stanfield) to bring him down. 

Wolff is pretty in the good lead.  I liked the fact that even though he had a book that possessed evil powers, he still screams like a girl whenever he’s in danger.  He has a likeable chemistry with Qualley, who looks a little like a young Eva Green, and they make some of the film’s more tedious sections tolerable just because they are fun to watch.  Willem Dafoe basically plays The Green Goblin again, but dressed up as a porcupine man cosplaying as the Joker.  Whigham has some good moments as Wolff’s father, but Stanfield’s character is annoying.  I’m sure he’s a talented performer in other films; it’s just that his character’s eccentric behavior gets on your nerves almost instantly. 

Death Note was based on a manga, which is probably why it pretty much makes no sense.  I mean, the book just drops out of the sky and Wolff picks it up.  That’s your opening scene!  I guess this was one of those deals where I had to read a comic book prequel or watch an anime short beforehand to figure out what was going on.   

Some of the death scenes have a Final Destination quality about them.  Most of the kills are weak though.  I guess it’s novel that the characters used the book’s power on a global scale instead of just using it to get back at bullies, but the approach is just too clunky and the book's endless list of “rules” gets irritating almost from the get-go.