Monday, December 25, 2006

Death Note 2: The Last Name

I really liked the first movie so I've been looking forward to watching this sequel, especially since the first one ended kinda abruptly. So despite the christmas shopping crowds, I braved the mall at Junction 8 to catch the movie on Sunday afternoon.

Before I say anything else, I admit that I have not read the manga series so I am not comparing this movie with anything other than Part 1.

I think DN2 tries too hard to be clever. While DN1 drew me in with all the plot twists, I found that at times, the twists in DN2 were a little forced and I found myself either getting confused or slightly (I stress 'slightly') bored. With the introduction of the second Kira and other characters, there was less time spent on developing Light further. In fact, I think his only real scene came only at the end. At other times, he just didn't seem as interesting as in Part 1. 'L' was ok but in this sequel, the incessant scenes focussing on his sweet tooth became quite distracting for me.

I guess it was inevitable that in comparison with DN1, the character development was not as interesting. It's probably the freshness factor. Hence, in DN2, they tried to focus a little more on the twists and the cleverness of Light but again, that lost a little excitement since we've already seen it in DN1. It's a bit like that M. Night Shyamalan. After his groundbreaking 'Sixth Sense', he never really wowed the audience anymore coz we kinda came to expect his movies to come with a twist so we aren't really blown away when the twists come. Kinda ironic actually.

However, I will say that as a whole, it was a pretty good movie. If you've watched DN1, you will almost definitely go watch DN2 so my opinions probably won't matter. If you've not watched DN1, I strongly recommend you try to catch the double bill at GV. It might be more interesting when you watch parts 1 & 2 together. This is one DVD set I'll definitely get when it comes out.

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