Let's Change the WorLd! (The Recap)

Funny story: I was supposed to see this with Lynn, but we somehow bought tickets for different movie theaters. So she's texting me "WHERE R U?" and I'm like "IN DA LOBBY! WHERE R U?" and she's like "IN DA LOBBY!" and we're both right! We're just in different theaters! Haw haw haw and ha ha!

So I ended up seeing it by myself.

[I'm totally gonna spoil the movie, so stop reading if you ever intend to see it. But this entry has no effect on the manga series.]

Here's what I got: L wore that funny mask again. Score! And he ate more weird desserts (a skewer containing fruits, marshmallow-looking things that are probably mochi, and a FRENCH CRULLER. A donut. On a skewer. Oh, Japan.). No silly dance, but I wasn't really expecting that, I just wrote that to be a jackass.

And they totally said "change the world," but it was in a way that I found sort of touching. The inexact quote is "Not even a genius can change the world alone. And that is a wonderful thing about this world."

As for the story... it was pretty meh. This film had different, non-Death Note writers, and it really showed, both in plot and tone. It's about germ warfare, which I thought was pretty weird for L to solve, and also it was so close to home what with all this swine flu I try to not pay attention to. Also, this happens when the world is still in the midst of Kira mania, yet that never gets referenced. Wouldn't those ecological terrorists be afraid of Kira's judgment? Gagagooey? Are we supposed to believe this is some kind of magical xylophone or something?

And also, it was very... somber? Serious? I dunno, lacking in the fun department (the first laugh from the audience came 33 minutes into the film). Not that Death Note is a happy-go-lucky romp, but the whole thing seemed kind of joyless. Maybe that's to be expected from [SPOILER ALERT] a protagonist who only has 23 days left to live, but whatever, I just didn't dig it. And even if that's gonna suck all the fun out of his last mystery, they didn't expand on, like, how L must feel about his impending death. Eh, maybe something was just lost in translation.

Afterward, they showed interviews/behind the scenes footage, and the actor talked about how it was a challenge to recreate L and he had to compromise with the director some thoughts he had about the character, and it sort of showed. This L was a lot less quirky, a bit blander. However, he also said how touched he was to get to play L, which I thought was nice.

Still, I didn't hate it. I like L a lot, and it was sad to see him walk off toward his death at the end. I kept thinking they'd reuse his death scene footage from Death Note II, and that'd be kind of a buzzkill, but they didn't, and I appreciated that.

And it made me totally want to dress up like L at Dragon*Con.


This is what L looks like in that silly mask.