Sporadically speaking

There was really only so much they could do without all of Light’s inner monologues and ugly face pulling so I can understand how he wasn’t quite as impressive. I didn’t find L particularly interesting in the manga so I’d put my liking of the character down to the way that the incidents and quirks of the manga were seamlessly strung together to create a cohesive characterisation, something that occurred for Light in the manga but couldn’t be translated so fluidly into film.