L: Change the World Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: With only 23 days left to live, the world's great detective, L, must stop a terrorist group's plan to destroy humanity with a new virus.

Review: Well you knew they weren't going to leave well enough alone since there was at least one avenue left to milk this franchise with this film serving as a prequel, sequel, and sidestory simultaneously. See, that's the thing about "Death Note," it is a solid story meant to have a finite conclusion, and I my respect for that fact makes me love the series all the more. This film feels more like a cash-in than a legitimate attempt to bring anything new to the story. In fact, this entry cheapens the first two movies in a way by implying that L moved to write his name in the Death Note because he wanted to resolve the case in this film more! Are you fucking kidding me?! When this movie had first been announced I thought they were going to explore more of L's history and how he became "the world's greatest detective" but instead all we get is L running around trying to stop a lame plot to destroy the world. It's almost as if they knew it was going to be impossible to outdo the creativity and scale of dealing with the Death Notes so they were like "the world will be destroyed oh no!" How dramatic. The other annoying aspect was they advertised many of the cameos of the past characters as if they would serve a real purpose to the story which they most certainly do not. Watari and Misora appear briefly in the beginning of the movie as we are shown the case L tackled right before dealing with the Kira case. Misa and Ryuk pop up to deliver like two lines each unnecessarily except so they can use them in the trailer. As for Light, he is listed in the credits, but I'm guessing only because they had footage of him on surveillance playing on a monitor in the background. Realistically, the only person who should have been in this movie was Mr. Yagami but oddly he is not here or even mentioned; given the predicament L finds himself in, I would have thought he'd ask for his help or at least have a throwaway line mentioning that Mr. Yagami was still grieving over Light or something. The story is simplistic enough: some mad scientist working with a small, bio-terrorist group wants to destroy humanity with a new virus because humans are evil (yeah, real original). The problem is that they have the virus ready and tested, but they don't have a cure since they intend to survive and rebuild humanity with intelligent people. This mad scientist, named Dr. Kujo, is played by Youki Kudoh (she has this whole crazy milf thing going on with her) who some may (or may not) recognize from her appearance in the highly controversial episode of "Masters of Horror" in the "Imprint" episode. In fact, a lot of the cast are J-horror alumni which is somewhat unusual. Oh well, I welcome it since it's one of the better aspects to this movie. Anyway, Dr. Kujo is actually "K" which means she was/is a protege of Watari just as L was/is. This is another weird aspect to the film because the movie franchise never addressed the story regarding Wammy's House which is where all these lettered geniuses come from; this is further exasperated by the fact they bring up the B.B. Murder Case which involved the character "B." K's lab partner had created a cure for the virus but upon learning of K's plan he forced her to kill him and his research, which is witnessed by his daughter, Maki. Earlier, "F" had discovered the groups plan to use the virus and found a boy who is immune to the virus and sent him to L not long before Maki arrives setting up L to babysit two brats. Well, antics ensue as Maki infects herself, which K wants to capitalize on, as L tracks down a scientist that can use the boy's immunity to create a cure which of course he does. Maki gets captured because she's dumb, and K intends to fly to the USA to spread the virus through Maki's infection but of course L stops K and her goons; I should probably mention how completely stupid K's flunkies are, because they feel like comic book villains and try their best to look it as well (one of them is kind of hot though). Maki just does whatever and the boy is brought to Wammy's House where he is named "Near" which is an extremely loose interpretation of the actual Near character. The film ends with L just walking off into the sunset which is completely asinine because we already know how he dies and it would have been mere hours after after this! This movie also makes the final scene of "Death Note: The Last Name" seem odd because why would he go back to the old headquarters and just hang out? Wouldn't Mr. Yagami have acknowledged L's shenanigans when he saw L only seconds before he died?! Uh, I give up. What can I say, the only conceivable reason to watch this film is if you're a fan of "Death Note" and an even bigger fan of the L character since this is just a fan-service for those who can't get enough of him. I will admit, Mr. Matsuyama has perfected his performance of L and is able to act out his nuances and mannerisms flawlessly; this is probably the single, strongest aspect to the film. Even though I've been knocking this film all along, it is kind of entertaining, and I do enjoy seeing more of L. I simply would have preferred a backstory of L or even his first case to show how he learned the ropes and made some mistakes. The stupid terrorists are lame movie-of-the-week rejects and a different case for L to solve would have been preferable. Also, the most ridiculous part of the film is that we already know how it will resolve because we know L, and the world for that matter, were around on the 23rd day that L died on. If you miss this entry to the franchise, don't feel as though you're losing out. While it was a cash-in, it's worth maybe a rental. Finally, I should note the only reason I even rated this as high as I did was because of L himself and realistically if I had no idea who he was, I would have rated this film much lower.

Notable Moment: When L is reading over backed up cases and trying to solve as many as he can before he dies. I must give a lot of credit to Mr. Mastuyama for all the dialogue he had to deliver in different languages throughout the film.

Final Rating: 6/10