L: Change the World [MA] - Japanese

With the Death Note case essentially completed, detective L spends his final days on Earth closing numerous unsolved cases. But when a radical environmentalist group get their hands on a deadly virus: a hybrid crossbreed of influenza and the Ebola virus, with the intent to “cleanse” the earth of its excess population, L is faced with the assignment of battling against a new kind of Death God. With only 23 days to save the world, L discovers that the key to the Earth’s salvation lies with a young boy and girl. 

Admittedly it’s been a while since I last saw the Death Note movies so for the entire beginning of this movie I was playing catch-up, but once I got into the swing of it and the plots and characters came flooding back, my enjoyment of this movie was piqued. I’d forgotten how much I love the character of L and having seen a few of the anime series’ episodes, the events and characters of this movie made all the more sense and held more relevance. Having said that, you don’t have to have watched the anime series in order to understand what’s going on, but it does help to have watched this film’s predecessors: the two Death Note movies. 

With the Death Note case essentially completed, detective L spends his final days on Earth closing numerous unsolved cases. But when a radical environmentalist group get their hands on a deadly virus: a hybrid crossbreed of influenza and the Ebola virus, with the intent to “cleanse” the earth of its excess population, L is faced with the assignment of battling against a new kind of Death God. With only 23 days to save the world, L discovers that the key to the Earth’s salvation lies with a young boy and girl. 

I do love the Japanese when it comes to cinema: their stories, characters, and plot ideas are so different from Western cinema and that’s where the appeal is. L: Change the World chronicles the last days of detective L, a character who we came to not know and just love in Death Note. 

Kenichi Matsuyama reprises his role as the expressionless, childlike, socially inept, and sugar addicted L, playing the role to perfection. I can’t help but love L when I see him and here in this movie there is a refreshing amount of comedy that creeps into the mix as we’ve got L having to babysit younger children. Kenichi conveyed that awkwardness extremely well and through this, there was a beautiful story of an unconventional, almost-family bringing a lighter tone to play against the darker and thrilling timbre of the movie. 

The makeup and special effects are something to be applauded, as the bloody symptoms of the virus will be staying with me tonight: they stayed within the realms of the believable and restrained against the temptation of having too much blood and gore. 

Starring Shunji Fujimura, Mayuko Fukuda, Narushi Fukuda, Sei Hiraizumi, Renji Ishibashi, Yuta Kanai, and Yuki Kudo, L: Change the World is a great film and a stable and uplifting ending to a trilogy. Filled with drama, action, violence, gore, suspense, and comedy, it’s a film worth watching.