Review: ‘L – Change the World’

My friend Chad and I attended the first of a two-night only Fathom event last night, screening the third film in the ‘Death Note’ franchise. The problem is, it’s only vaguely related to the first two ‘Death Note’ movies. Well, it’s not so much a problem really, so much as it was just surprising and a bit disorienting at first.

‘L: Change the World’ is actually a sort of spin-off/prequel that explores what L was up to after the first film, leading up to the second film, focusing on a major case unrelated to the Death Note that has the fate of mankind hanging in the balance. Sound convoluted, well… it is sort of, but not really. The movie starts out kind of slow, which is bad news because the film’s total running time is 2 hours and 40 minutes.

This movie begins with L and Watari discussing how they plan to outsmart Kira, leading to L’s decision to write his own name in the Death Note. The idea is to beat Kira by pre-determining his own fate, orchestrating his own death 23 days into the future. It is L’s belief that Kira will attempt to kill him using the Death Note, but L plans to switch Kira’s Death Note with a fake. But, enough of that. I recommend going back and watching ‘Death Note: The Last Name’ to experience the whole story. It is the best of the three films, in my opinion.

‘L: Change the World’ takes the character of L and transplants him into the very American bio-terrorism/outbreak genre, naturally combining these thriller elements with the detective elements that help to make L such a fascinating character. We witness L pulled into a global crisis, involving a double agent called K and a deadly genetically-modified virus that is a cross between a highly infectious influenza and ebola.

Once you get through the initial slow-moving hour of plot development, the story does begin to take on an interesting element of mystery and suspense. L is unexpectedly charged with protecting a scientist’s daughter and a small Thai boy after both of their father’s are murdered, later discovering they both hold very crucial secrets within their biology.

As I mentioned before, ‘L: Change the World’ is a long movie that starts out slow and doesn’t really grab you until it’s half over, but the one element that manages to keep it interesting is L, despite his late entrance into the overall plot. He’s fun and quircky while still convincing us that he’s likely the most brilliant detective in the world. His interactions with the two children he is protecting is rich and full of humor and even some touching moments of bonding between the three characters.

Overall, ‘L: Change the World’ is not a great movie, but it’s not terrible either. Really, if the film was cut down from 2:40 to maybe about an even 2 hours, it would have been a far more successful production. While we attended last night (for the subtitled showing) the film will screen again tonight in the English-dubbed version. At over $12 per ticket, I wouldn’t recommend seeing this in the theatre. You’re better off waiting for it to hit DVD, which shouldn’t take long considering how popular this franchise has become.

[Overall: 3.25 stars out of 5]