If you have not seen the anime or the other two “Death Note” movies you may not want to read on as this review may give away things that happen in those. But if you have read a synopsis of this movie already then that stuff has already been given away. Also while you will get the story in “change the WorLd” I think you will be missing out on really understanding L and a few references in the movie. All that and the first two movies are awesome and deserve to be seen.

To finally take down Kira, L sacrificed his life by writing his own name in the Death Note first giving him only 23 days to live. After finally proving that Light was Kira, losing Watari, and finishing the case L is left alone awaiting his own death. To pass time and stay busy L solves numerous cases from around the world but after only a few days all of the cases are gone and L is left to wait for his death. Then L gets an odd phone call from a young boy looking for Watari. L decides to take him in and discovers from an SD card hidden on the boy that he is the only survivor from a mysterious virus that wiped out his village. While L is trying to put the pieces together a young girl Maki also comes looking for Watari. When a bioterrorist group comes looking for Maki, L realizes he must find an antidote for this virus before he dies and that the two children are pieces to solving the puzzle.

I love “Death Note”, the movies, the anime; it is a very intelligent story dealing with a battle of wits over what is right and wrong in the world. I also have a weakness for L, his quirks and views on the world quickly made him stand out as my favorite character. So I really wanted to see “change the WorLd” as I have seen all the anime and both movies and was looking for one last L fix. Sadly this movie is not what I wanted; but nothing was going to stop me from watching it since I am a fan and I’m sort of a completist too.

The plot and how it plays out sort of reminds me of 80’s action movies: big explosions, running around, evil terrorists, and very little depth in the story. Now I love mindless action movies. But to follow up such a smart, dark, dialog driven story with this is disappointing.  It is obvious that they are flying solo with the story since they have no source material to pull from (anime & manga). The terrorist group is generic and falls flat, there is a really long almost comical death scene, there are small car chase scenes, a village being blown up, and they even end up battling it out on a plane. Once again fine for an action movie way off from “Death Note”.

Now onto L, the main reason I gave this movie a shot. Yes he is still quirky, cute, candy eating, awkward L; but there are some differences. In attempts to show a more human side to him through the interaction with the kids he goes from being distant L to caring L quite quickly though still in a very L sort of way (ex. to comfort crying kids he tries to give them candy). But if you absolutely love the crouching in a chair, often behind computers or TV’s, not showing his face really in public, going out very very rarely L, you are going to be surprised. Enter action star L, we have him riding bikes, traveling on train, riding in cars, walking around cities, jumping on to moving planes, and running.  I have to admit that the running was absolutely fantastic and worth seeing (you were right @ldmullen); but all of this is not the L we know. Kenichi Matsuyama does his best to keep L in all that he does throughout the movie so it isn’t like L just vanishes; but the situations that he is put in makes it odd to watch.
 
As a “Death Note” movie is was disappointing to me and since I don’t want this being my last memory I am planning on watching the other movies again soon. As an 80’s early 90’s action flick it is on the average side. The mix of “Death Note” and action is a watchable movie and has its moments so you will not walk out on it but probably will only watch once. I can’t strongly suggest that anyone goes out of their way to watch “change the WorLd”. But I know that fans are planning on seeing this regardless of what is said, so this is all I have left to say to you; go in with low expectations, the few very L situations that you get on top of seeing him run should be enough to please you since you are getting more L footage but there’s not enough to the story to have you talking about it later.

Note: If you watch it with the subtitled instead of dubbed there are times where some of the characters including L speak English, you may have to listen closely to understand what all is being said.