Many manga fans are complaining about the changes. Quite frankly they have very little ground to stand on for that. There's no way they could've condensed the story better. Then again, these tend to be the same kind of fans who scream bloody murder if so much as a single letter in a line of dialouge is changed. Some people can not be pleased and are best to be ignored.

The first film was well done for the most part, so what about this film? Well....

We have the same actors reprising their roles from the first film, and their performances have no faltered. The actor playing L is required to show more emotion this time, but does so without going over the top and killing his character. Light's acting is still solid as well, able to transition between 'Innocent" Light and "Kira" Light.

Misa is played to perfection. The voice and mannerisms are almost an exact duplicate of the source material. There are some slight differences to her character but they are minor and not detracting.

Were elements changed? Yeah, they had to be. Some people may not be able to understand this, but no one wants to watch a 10 hour movie. Many areas had to be condensed but they showed enough as to not eliminate an intergal elements, except for Near and Mello.

Actually, this is an improvement. Those characters resulted in a dreadfully boring and an atrocious ending. What we got instead was a compelling, intense ending with some heartfelt moments intertwined and a story that was kept where it should've stayed. So yes, I'm saying it, this movie was better then the original manga in terms of the ending.

9.5/10

I knew that the Death Note story couldn't be told in a single movie and the Americans proved that several times over, the Japanese made it a two parter and though it's not on par with the anime it's still great viewing.

Following on the story from Light & L's first meeting the battle of the two great minds continues as they try to outdo one another until the fantastic finale.

Once again there are differences from the anime and the story isn't identical (Including the finale) but it's loyal enough to the original material to not be offensive.

Once again both Light and L actors knock their performances out of the park and make up for some shoddy cgi and questionable soundtrack.

I would recommend the Death Note movies to any Death Note fan, anyone who has only seen the US version and anyone who simply doesn't fancy anime.

Now venturing on to the live action spinoffs methinks.

The Good:

It's Death Note

Perfect casting

Extremely well written

The Bad:

They changed Rems entire gender!

Red Hot Chilli Peppers again!? Really!?

Ryuk/Rem sfx still crap

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The Death note story can be just about accomplished across 4hrs with tweaks

The second part of the "Death Note" movie series, "the Last Name" starts from where the first one ended. Yagami Light, who uses God of Death's notebook, the Death Note, to kill criminals has joined the team of his father, Inspector Yagami, and the world's greatest detective, L, to capture Kira. Light, who is Kira, is motivated by his need to discover L's true name, so he can get rid of the detective. Meanwhile L is certain that Light is Kira, but without evidence he can't do anything but wait and see. As if things aren't bad enough, a Second Kira appears out of nowhere, to help Kira. Second Kira is Amane Misa, a rising idol, who worships Kira and has her own Death Note. Things move to their conclusion.

"Death Note: the Last Name" is a great improvement when compared to the first movie. Where first film was still somewhat slow and uncertain, the second part keeps the viewer interested its whole length: nearly two and half hours! The second part is also more faithful to the original manga than the first one. Greatest difference would be removing the character of Higuchi and replacing him with Takada, who in manga didn't appear until much later. The second movie is also the concluding one, which might be confusing since both movies together only tell the first half of the manga events. Still the finale has been cleverly turned faithful to manga, and I personally like it even better than manga ending.

I already commented the performances of Tatsuya Fujiwara(Light),Ken'ichi Matsuyama(L) and Takeshi Kaga(Inspector Yagami) in my review of first "Death Note" movie, so I'll just comment the new parties here. Erika Toda surprised me with her role as Misa. Although, like many other manga fans, I too would have wanted to see blonde Misa, the hair colour was the only complain I could come up with. Her Misa is naive but not as annoyingly air headed as in the manga, but actually makes her a believable. Nana Katase makes an okay role as an ambitious Takada, although I feel she could have done better.

The complains are the same as previous: the minor characters of police investigators are left in the background and the Death Gods look ridiculous, but this time the dynamic moving of the story saves a lot.

What can I say? A definitive improvement to the first film and a great ending to the story.