L Alone Couldn't Save This Pointless Movie

Death Note: L, change the World introduces the unwritten chapter of Death Note and reveals how the legendary detective “L” (Kenichi Matsuyama) spends the final 23 days of his life. The story begins as L takes on the “Kira” case, in which countless criminals are dying under mysterious circumstances. L successfully solves the case and stops Kira, but only after sacrificing his life, leaving himself with only 23 days left to live.

For his final case L faces down a bio-terrorist group trying to wipe out humanity with a deadly virus ten times more potent than Ebola. As L tries to formulate an antidote with a scientist, he must also save the lives of two children who have no one else to turn to. Death Note: L Change The World features what happened before and after the two earlier Death Note events and shows Death Note fans the more human side of L that could not be seen previously. Events here take place during the last 23 days of L's life. He writes his name in the Death Note because he knows that Light would do it instead. So, taking his life in his own hands he faces death and decides to finish off all the cases that he had pushed to the side after his right hand man, Watari (Shunji Fujimura) dies. On the other side of the world F is in a village plagued by a rare virus that happens to take effect immediately. He has a boy (Narushi Fukuda) in tow that is seemingly immune to the virus. F sends the boy on his way and tells him to contact Watari, not knowing that he has died. Doctors Nikaido and Kujo (Shingo Tsurumi and Youki Kudoh) are working on the antidote for the deadly virus, while Dr. Matoba (Masanobu Takashima) wants to sell the virus, but he needs the antidote first. When Dr. Nikaido's daughter Maki (Mayuko Fukuda) is made an orphan, she runs also searching for Watari. When the boy and Maki both end up on L's doorstep he becomes their babysitter as he sets out to find the antidote. This would normally be a setup for a pretty decent movie, but this one falls short. Aside from L there is little Death Note lore here except of the last couple of days leading to the death of Light which features a quick glimpse of Light (Tatsuya Fujiwara), Misa Amane (Erika Toda), and Ryuk (that takes up approx. 10 minutes). It's bad enough that the writers went and changed the ending of the original manga, then they had to fill in the gaps by putting together this ridiculous story. Changing the world? Ridding the planet of useless people? Those sound suspiciously like things that Light Yagami would do, though this connection between the original Death Note concept and the plot of L: Change the World is never truly explored. Unlike the previous films, L is an original screenplay (a novel adaptation was released roughly one month before the film premiere), carving its own fictional niche while making a few unwelcoming, and unsatisfying nods to Death Note mythology. L is still sort of quirky and smart, but without the original manga story as backup, the film suffers. L's charisma in the other films came not only from his quirky looks and behavior, but also from his ability to outthink and outwit everyone around him. In L: Change the World, L is presented as always ahead of the game, and there's never truly a moment where his intelligence impresses or entertains the audience. That's both a plus and a minus. The plus is it eliminates some of the heady and wordy exposition that weighed down the Death Note films. The negative is that it makes L: Change the World much less fun or surprising. Not to worry, in place of L whipping his foes with his ultra-powerful brain, we get...character development (yay)! The original Death Note manga, anime, and movies were concerned with mindgames and plotting to deal with actual character development, so the change here is a slightly ok one. This isn't the same "always solving crimes" L that we saw in the other films; this L has time to reflect upon his life and even his feelings, and the minor tweaks to the character are apparently bad ones. The filmmakers give L some emotional connection through his interaction with both Maki and the nameless little boy, and Kenichi Matsuyama makes the character's abundant strangeness watchable and endearing. For L fanboys (or fangirls, as is more likely) L: Change the World may find it as disappointing as I did. The film finds some unnecessary humor, though it's largely dumb stuff, and the film doesn't possess that dark edge that made the Death Note movies so compulsively watchable. L: Change the World is the least it can possibly be without becoming wholly unsatisfying. It's a very little  amusing showcase for a quirky character that references, but does not truly capitalize or expand upon the fictional world that spawned him. As a die-hard Death Note fan, I was unsatisfied and I believe that this should be avoided at all costs. A saddened 1 on my "Go See" scale.