This film uses the setting of the Death Note films, but lacks what made Death Note so fascinating: an intricate, constantly-changing storyline involving extremely intelligent enemies and their intellectual warfare. L change the WorLd feels kind of like a Godzilla film in which Godzilla is nowhere to be seen and Mothra appears for a few seconds at the beginning. I can't help but feel that it probably would have actually been a better movie if it were not Death Note-related.
Naomi Misora, Watari, Misa and Ryuuk were given cameos, but nothing much was really done with their characters and the film would hardly be any different if they never appeared. Furthermore, what happened to Kira's influence on the world?! Right after burning the Death Notes, we see L helping solve various murder cases, and the main antagonists belong to an organization that must have been planning their attack while Kira was quite active. Not a single mention of Kira's influence is made, and it seems entirely as though the writers forgot that crime was supposed to have gone way down because of people's fear of Kira.
Apparently the film's acting was praised in Japan, but anyone who speaks English will be pulled out of the film by the entirely emotionless (and quite frequent) English dialogue. I'm guessing that most of the actors didn't know what they were saying and were just pronouncing the sentences syllabically.
Numerous opportunities for connections with Death Note were thrown away. The only two throwbacks (aside from the early cameos) were a villain with a scar similar to Mello's and the fact that, at the end of the movie, L names the boy he's been taking care of Near. "Near is a good name," he says. Of course, L change the WorLd's Near looks and acts nothing like the Nate River of the series. When L was trying to figure out the meaning of the letters "MK", I was hoping (and expecting) them to stand for "Mihael Keehl", but there wasn't even a passing reference to the name for fans to recognize.
A couple of moments in the film that were supposed to be serious made me laugh out loud. The first was when L tried standing up straight with triumphant music playing... and several loud spinal cracking noises. The second was when L leaps from the stairs into the airplane in slow motion.
I do consider L change the WorLd worth seeing for Death Note aficionados, but I don't think most fans will feel it lives up to anything else in the franchise.
Naomi Misora, Watari, Misa and Ryuuk were given cameos, but nothing much was really done with their characters and the film would hardly be any different if they never appeared. Furthermore, what happened to Kira's influence on the world?! Right after burning the Death Notes, we see L helping solve various murder cases, and the main antagonists belong to an organization that must have been planning their attack while Kira was quite active. Not a single mention of Kira's influence is made, and it seems entirely as though the writers forgot that crime was supposed to have gone way down because of people's fear of Kira.
Apparently the film's acting was praised in Japan, but anyone who speaks English will be pulled out of the film by the entirely emotionless (and quite frequent) English dialogue. I'm guessing that most of the actors didn't know what they were saying and were just pronouncing the sentences syllabically.
Numerous opportunities for connections with Death Note were thrown away. The only two throwbacks (aside from the early cameos) were a villain with a scar similar to Mello's and the fact that, at the end of the movie, L names the boy he's been taking care of Near. "Near is a good name," he says. Of course, L change the WorLd's Near looks and acts nothing like the Nate River of the series. When L was trying to figure out the meaning of the letters "MK", I was hoping (and expecting) them to stand for "Mihael Keehl", but there wasn't even a passing reference to the name for fans to recognize.
A couple of moments in the film that were supposed to be serious made me laugh out loud. The first was when L tried standing up straight with triumphant music playing... and several loud spinal cracking noises. The second was when L leaps from the stairs into the airplane in slow motion.
I do consider L change the WorLd worth seeing for Death Note aficionados, but I don't think most fans will feel it lives up to anything else in the franchise.