Saturday, February 14, 2009

Review: L - Change the World


Summary
Alternative Title: Lの本当の秘密
Genre: Action, adventure
Release Date: Feb. 9, 2008
Starring:

  • Ken'ichi Matsuyama as L
  • Mayuko Fukuda as Maki Nikaido
After writing his own name in the Death Note in order to beat Light Yagami, L only has 28 days to live. He takes on one final case involving a bio-terrorist group that wants to kill humanity with a virus.

Review
I honestly didn’t expect much from this movie. Being a spin-off of the Death Note series, I didn’t think it was going to that good. In the end, this movie was a complete waste of time.

The main problem about L: Change the World was the story. Firstly, it’s obvious that this movie is supposed to be a suspense/mystery movie, but it comes no where near it. The original anime was one of most suspenseful animes that I’ve watched and L: Change the World fails to provide any suspense. The story was very predictable, with no twists to keep it interesting. The story was also supposed to have a grand scale. There’s a virus that’s about to infect the whole world. But the movie makes it seem like L is the only person in the world that cares. At one point, an FBI agent comes to help, but he seemed more like an ordinary Japanese salary man than FBI material.

Another dislike I had was the beginning. The beginning seemed like it was going to start off strong, but it turned out to be really terrible. It had some of most cheesy acting, with all those infected people trying to act like zombies. But it looked more like they just had a sever acme condition and were moaning.

The movie also had the most unnecessary use of English I’ve ever seen in a J-movie. For some reason, the boy in the first scene (who looks perfectly Japanese) can only understand English. This makes for some pretty laughable scenes, especially in the beginning scene where the Japanese investigator is driving away from the bad guys and tells the boy to get help, but since the actor can barely speak English, the scene is totally out of place…no suspense at all (see the video preview below).



Pro
  • L was in it
Cons
  • Absolutely no suspense of mystery
  • Story was very predictable
  • Cheesy acting
  • Unnecessary use of English
Recommendation
Officially the worst J-movie I’ve ever seen (at the time of this posting). I don’t recommend this movie to anyone, even if you’re a Death Note fan.

Rating: 2/10

Video Preview
Here’s the clip that shows what I mean when I say “unnecessary use of English”.



Related Reviews
Death Note
Death Note: The Last Name