If I understand "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie" correctly -- and there is every chance I do not -- it is about a card game featuring
imaginary monsters and warriors that somehow, in this instance, summons ACTUAL evil beings that threaten mankind. Why would you make a movie that tells kids that their innocent card game might, under the right circumstances, result in their death? Where's the fun in that? This is one of the most incomprehensible films I've seen in a while, though I suspect kids who play the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game in real life will understand it perfectly. Dubbed from Japanese, the dialogue is the usual combination of awkwardly translated bluster ("Make all the smug pronouncements you want!"), important-sounding declarations ("Shadow Creatures, be gone! I command you!") and whacked-out insanity ("You may have destroyed my clown, but you forgot about my deck virus trap card!"). Nearly every line, out of context, is hilarious. In context, it's impressive just how boring the film is. In the prologue, a boy named Yugi Moto (voice of Dan Green) completes something called the Millennium Puzzle at the same time that archeologists in Egypt awaken the evil spirit Anubis, who was apparently defeated a long time ago by a different incarnation of Yugi Moto. Somehow completing the puzzle makes Yugi a master with the card game (which they don't call "Yu-Gi-Oh!" in the movie), and he becomes world-famous for his prowess.
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