A Review by Phil Calabro
2004, Warner Brothers, Dir. Hatsuki Tsuji - Starring the Voices of Dan Green, Eric Stuart, Scottie Ray, Wayne Grayson, John Campbell, Tara Jayne, Madeleine Blaustein, Darren Dunstan
I've never played Yu-Gi-Oh, I've never liked those stupid games where each card is the same price of a Scion, and rule books the size of my head - and I've never liked anime for starters. But somehow, something slightly kept me interested in this movie. It wasn't the animation, or the characters, but it was the entire anarchic nature of the film, with its wild battles and sort of coherent plot. Of course, its potential is dealt a suffering blow by its shameless self-promotion of the game. Makes me want to go buy some 'God Cards'.
It ain't solitaire, because this card game brings all the creatures to life and to battle each other to the death. We have our protagonist, Yugi (voiced by Green), who becomes the powerful game master Yami Yugi when he's in trouble, or playing the game. So when he breaks a curse to an ancient Egyptian warlord who plans to destroy the world, he must go up against all his undead forces to stop him. But at the same time, Yugi is put in a deadlock battle between his arch enemy Seto Kaiba (Stuart).
I can't really say anything about the voice acting, simply because it's same the annoying dialect as each of those frustrating cartoons anyway. We have the ever-brave Yugi, who's inner soul Yami has a booming and overpowering voice. Dan Green does a top-notch job at getting our attention, but he does it wayyyy too often. Then we have the stereotypical Italian-American teenager who's apparently stuck in the middle of Japan when he should be making a few hits in the sequel to Goodfellas. And plenty, and I mean plenty, of Japanese schoolgirls, who are ready to make every nerd-virgin's life happy (assuming they aren't watched The Next Generation, anyway).
Every minute of the battles in this movie are a climax. Right when you think one character is going to knock out the other with some amazing card, his opponent screams out that he's got an even better one (I've-got-a-bigger-gun syndrome, it appears). No wonder why kids love these cards - the characters make a big deal out of each one that they're literally screaming merchandise in your child's face. However, the battles get kind of interesting at points, especially at the finale, and the wild names of the cards. The animation does no justice, with the same choppiness and terrible facial expressions as always. Yugi's eyes were created by pasting two CDs onto paper plates. Really.
Needless to say, I didn't hate this movie. But it wasn't Goodfellas either. It has the stamina and energy of an 8-year-old boy, our entitled audience anyway. I'm glad I gave this a shot, because it didn't have the same stupidity of movies like Princess Diaries 2 or anything in its league. Yu-Gi-Oh will definitely impress your children, but don't expect the money to stop flowing after buying the ticket. All I'm waiting for is Pokemon vs. Yu-Gi-Oh.
2/4 stars
