DEATH NOTE: L CHANGE THE WORLD (2008)

Yawn. This entire movie is about L. Now I like L, but without his nemesis, Light, he's kinda boring. As you remember from the end of Part 2 L wrote his own name in the Death Note saying that he would die peacefully in 23 days. This is the story of what happens during that time.

It's entertaining, but without Light or Misa (my god she was hot!) or Ryuk the whole thing is disappointing. It's like if there was an episode of "Buffy" starring only Giles. Honestly, if you're a big DEATH NOTE fan I would just skip this film, it's just going to disappoint you. As a stand alone film it's OK, but still boring. Skip it.

I guess I could tell you the plot: L has to stop some terrorist from releasing a deadly virus that will kill everybody on the planet. Of course, if he didn't burn the Death Note at the beginning of the movie he could just kill them. Then again that would be against L's morals.

Part 1
Part 2

DEATH NOTE: THE LAST NAME (2006)

Part 2 is even better than the original!!!!! I liked it so much I just ordered the Blu-Ray set! Part 1 spent a lot of time introducing the story and the rules and characters, etc., but with Part 2 we already know all that shit so they bust in balls out from the very beginning and it's a non-stop roller coaster ride the entire movie!

You already know how at the end of Part 1 Kira killed his girlfriend to gather enough sympathy to be asked to join the task force well now he's in, but even he's in for a surprise when a second Kira shows up and this one has "the eyes" that the god of death spoke of earlier. I'm not going to give any more away, but it was very exciting. Highly recommended.

My one and only complaint (besides Erika Toda not getting naked) was the song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. What the fuck is that shit?! Yuck!!!

Part 1
Part 3

THE CROOKED WAY (1949)

Eddie Rice has been in the military hospital for the last few years. He's got a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain and he can't remember anything at all before he woke up in the hospital. The doctors give up so they release him. He enlisted in Los Angeles so that's where he goes to look for answers and he finds them quick: he used to be a big time gangster and right before he enlisted he squealed on the #1 crime boss in town. *gulp!* A normal person would hear this bit of information and run away as quickly as possible, but no not this genius he sticks around and gets shot at and the crap beat out of him repeatedly. And that's my biggest problem with this movie: I feel no sympathy towards the main character. All of his problems are of his own making. A better story would be a guy trying to avoid trouble, not going around sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong.

Just a few hours after he arrived in town the bad guys beat the shit out of him and tell him if he doesn't leave town in 24 hours they're going to kill him. What does this guy do? He goes to their illegal gambling hall and starts talking shit!

Beautiful looking noir (thanks to cinematography by John Alton) that's held back by the stupidity of the main character.  Still very much worth watching and filled with great lines and characters.  Recommended.

DEF-CON 4 (1985)

Three astronauts are in orbit in a space station when WW3 breaks out on earth. From their high advantage point they watch nuclear missiles destroy all of the major cities on the Earth. Bummed out and depressed they float around for a few more months before their navigation computer is mysteriously taken over from somebody on down below and they crash down on an American beach. They soon learn that the survivors of the war are cannibals!

That sounds super exciting and for the first 20 minutes or so I enjoying it, but once they get to Earth the entire story falls apart and it's just your standard post-apocalyptic survival story that we've all seen before a million times, except this time there little action and no nudity.

Low budget, boring script with zero tension or likable characters, the "school girl" character is fugly and the action scenes are sub-"The A-Team" level. Skip this movie. The poster though is a real attention getter and probably the reason why 95% of the people who actually watch this movie ever wanted to see it. I know it tricked me.

DEATH NOTE (2006)

[Update 12/23/2019: the reviews for this entire series are a disaster. I desperately need to redo them all.]

Light Yagami is a college student with a naive outlook on the world: he thinks that if he pursues a career in Law that he will actually be able to make a difference. One night he witnesses something that shatters his beliefs and just a few moments later he finds the Death Note. It's a notebook that belongs to a God of Death (think Grim Reaper) named Ryuk and there's a shitload of rules to it, but simply put: you write a person's name in the book and they fucking die.

That's a huge oversimplification of the story, but I don't want to give too much away, cause the biggest thrill is discovering all the new rules and stuff as the it happens. Some of this stuff is so goddamn silly I was howling with laughter, but it was great! I really can't recommend this movie enough. I had a blast.

Usually I really dislike the use of CGI mixed with live action, but I thought the way Ryuk looked was really cool. At first sight it looked kinda silly, but I quickly grew to like it a lot. Highly recommended.

Part 2
Part 3