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Title: Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie
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“Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie.” Now who saw this coming? I sure as heck didn’t. In fact, as far as the whole Yu-Gi-Oh! community was concerned there were no plans for a YGO! movie to be made what-so-ever. Well, thanks in large part of the huge world wide success 4Kids has had with "their version" of the YGO! show, 4Kids were able to convince the creators of the show to make a YGO! movie exclusively for the American market. Which brings us to today, where I was invited to see a sneak preview screening of the YGO! movie a week before the movie would officially open nation wide to the public. I decided to take advantage of this offer even though I had little to no interest in seeing the movie. After all, the movie would be free, and why waste an opertunity like that? I got to the theater a couple hours early, where I was the second person in line to see the movie. Amazingly enough, the guy in front of me actually camped out in front of the theater to make sure that he was the first in line to see this movie. I’m guessing he’s someone who’s never visited my website before. Finally after waiting for two hours (where there was quite a line of parents, kids, and Sacramento Bee moron movie critic Joe Baltake were all waiting to see the movie.
Finally the theater manager started to let people into the theater, but not without first making sure to have every person checked by security to make sure there were no video camera’s, picture phones, or cassette recorders. Apparently Warner Bros. felt that they some sort of masterpiece on their hand, and they didn’t want anyone to make a home video version of this film to put out on the internet. After we all sat down in the theater and the doors closed behind us, everyone soon became surrounded by Radio Disney ad’s, and Disney had even gone as far as to send of couple of their lame dj’s to the theater to play a game with the kids before the movie started. It was a trivia game, where they asked these four (stupidly easy) questions to find out who would participate in the game:
1. What were the names of the two moose in “Brother Bear?”
2. What are the three theme parks Disney own’s (the lady actually messed up this question since Disney owns four theme parks. Yes, Tokyo Disneyland counts)?
3. What is the name of the red crab in “The Little Mermaid (can you believe someone actually got this question wrong)?”
4. What is the name of Captain Hooks assistant?
After this trivia game was finally over, and four kids had been picked, the announcers told everyone that the kids would now do a holla hoop contest to see who could keep their holla hooping the longest. At this point the movie was ten minutes late in starting up and I was wondering whether or not it was worth putting up with all this to see a movie I had no interest in seeing in the first place. Before I could fully make up my mind on whether I should get up leave or not, one of the kids FINALLY won, and five minutes later the movie started (minus the previews due to the fact that the games Disney provided went on longer then they were expecting them to)! So finally the movie starts, and so I mentally prepared myself for what was coming, knowing that I was now officially at the point of no return, and no turning back. The movie opens up with an introduction of sorts, of when Yugi solved the millennium puzzle. According to this movie, when Yugi solved the millennium puzzle and awakened “Pharaoh” (Yugi’s evil side. I won’t reveal his true name so that I don’t spoil anything for people who are waiting for the manga to finish coming out) he also awakened an evil Pharaoh who was still buried in Egypt named Anubis.
Apparently, Pharaoh and Anubis didn’t get along with each other very well in their past life, and with the exception of Kaiba, their duels were the deadliest duels to ever be played in the days of the Egyptian card duels. However since Anubis has been awakened, he has spent years planning his revenge on Pharaoh, and since Yugi has become an international superstar duelist, now Anubis knows where Pharaoh is, and now is the time to put his master plan into motion. We then see “Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie” logo flash across the screen, followed by the movies REAL name, which is “Pyramid of Light (it makes sense later on in the film).” However if there is one thing Yugi does NOT need it's an ancient evil coming back to life to take revenge on Pharaoh and destroy the world. Yugi doesn't need to have to deal with this mainly because since he and his God cards have become world famous, he is now hounded by every duelist who roams the street in hopes of having a challenge with him and a chance to take his God cards from him! These people are persistent, but not as persistent as Seto Kaiba, who is still looking for a strategy that will finally defeat Yugi. When Kaiba first appeared on screen I was actually kind of shocked at what I heard coming through his mouth.
No, Kaiba didn’t curse in this movie (4Kids still seems to have trouble letting some cursing slip by in a PG rated film), but what you might notice almost immediately is how different Eric Stuart portrays Kaiba in this movie. Instead of playing Kaiba as a straight out tough guy in this movie, it looks like Eric may have FINALLY took some of the YGO! fans advice on how to voice the character, and until the dueling starts Kaiba actually sounds like a very normal person in this movie. No really, he does. In the first half of this movie there’s no grunting, he doesn't do the “evil guy” voice very much, and I can honestly say that if Eric would voice Kaiba like this in the TV show, then I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with him! It’s actually nice to see at least one voice actor improved on his character, because unfortunately Yugi, Pharaoh, Joey, Tristan, and Tea, all pretty much sound the same like they do on the TV show, and while the performances have gotten slightly better as time has gone by, they are still far from what I would call ideal voices for these characters. Moving on with the story, one day Kaiba decides to visit Pegasus at his retirement home, the reason being that he believes Pegasus created a card that can defeat Yugi’s three God cards once and for all.
We then see Pegasus lounging by the pool enjoying his retirement, and at this point I KNEW we were watching a PG rated movie as Pegasus is actually drinking WINE!!! Not only does his butler say “More wine sir?” but when we see a close up of the bottle it has a real wine label on the bottle! Product placement I'm sure, but still I’m happy about this because I honestly thought that he would still be drinking grape juice in the movie, but I guess 4Kids decided that having Pegasus drinking an alcoholic beverage would be okay in the movie. Sorry, I’m getting off track here. So Kaiba shows up on Pegasus’s doorstep and asks Pegasus for a duel, with the prize being the card that can finally bring down Yugi’s God cards. Pegasus is reluctant to duel Kaiba, but he finally agree’s to the duel with Kaiba when Kaiba offers to give Pegasus his three Blue Eyed White Dragons if he loses. I’m guessing you can tell by now who’s going to win. An interesting twist comes up when Kaiba accuses Pegasus of lying to him because he actually had two cards that could defeat Yugi's God cards. However Pegasus has no idea what he is talking about as he only created one card that would be able to even having a chance at defeat the God cards.
Something was obviously wrong. So Kaiba’s got his cards to defeat Yugi now, and he challenges Yugi to a duel, which Yugi accepts despite having a very uneasy feeling about this particular duel (and trust me, this time the bad feeling merits being paid attention to). At this point we finally get to the “ultimate duel” that Warner Bros. has been hyping up for months now, and I would be lying if I told you that I was completely unsurprised by what was happening during the ultimate duel, but to be completely honest with you nothing prepared me for what was going to be taking place. Not too long into the game Kaiba use’s one of the cards he got from Pegasus called the Pyramid of Light, and what was originally a very simple duel suddenly becomes a very, very, VERY dangerous duel to be involved with.
Once this card in drawn a giant blue pyramid surrounds Kaiba and Yugi so that no one can get inside, Yugi’s normal self and Joey and Tristan's souls get sucked into the millennium puzzle, and whenever Kaiba and Yugi receive damage in the duel they lose some of their life. Not life points mind you, they lose some of their actual LIFE!! I didn’t see that coming. What follows is the history behind Anubis’s sinister plans, creepy music, and the best duel EVER animated for YGO! Okay, so this is a movie, it’s a given that the duels look better. But the duels are not only animated better, but the pacing and the action for these duels are much more tighter and better paced, making the card battles very exciting to watch. It came to the point that I soon started to cheer in the movie theater along with the rest of the kids in the audience. No words can really describe why this duel is so much better then most of the duels you see in the TV show, but once you see it you get so absorbed in the battle that whatever problems you had with the movie beforehand don’t seem to matter as much anymore. In fact, this may be the hardest thing for me to say, but despite what I was originally thinking, “Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie” is actually, in reality, a VERY good movie!
A lot of care was obviously put into this movie to make it look, sound, and feel special. Okay, so most of the voices are still very flawed, but would you believe me if I told you that the dialog in this movie is actually very smart? Yes, as hard as it is to believe I didn’t find myself cringing at the dialog very much at all. Oh sure there were your turkey lines here and there (the producers just COULDN’T resist re-using the “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore” joke, which I have heard enough times to last me a lifetime), but for the most part the dialog is much darker, and better written, the history behind Anubis is actually interesting and deep, and most of the funny dialog they wrote for this movie is, get this, actually FUNNY!! You may be looking at me strangely at this point, and I can’t say I blame you, but the truth is that most of the jokes in this movie were actually timed well, they were funny, the delivery was spot on, and the writing in this movie exceeded all my expectations I had before walking into the movie. However maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised that most of the dialog works here. After all, this movie was made FOR 4Kids, and the fact that 4Kids didn’t have to adapt anything probably helped a great deal. After all, since they didn’t have to adapt anything they could just write what they wanted to and time everything the way they wanted it to be timed, and I think this ultimately helped the movie.
I would still be happier if there were better voices delivering this dialog, but I guess you can’t get everything you want. And the violence...my God I couldn’t believe how violent this thing got to be near the end. I’m not going to spoil anything for you guys (because I want you guys to experience the final scene’s for yourself), but lets just say you’ll be looking at the screen and asking yourself “My God, are they doing what I think their doing?!” This movie was rated PG for “Scary Monster Images and Combat,” and I thought that was weird because I wasn’t exactly sure what that was even supposed to mean, but now that I’ve seen the movie I fully understand the meaning behind the rating. Still, was it really that hard to rate the movie PG for “Violence?” One thing that did disappoint me was that I didn’t get one of the free collectable trading cards at the movie, and I guess that’s understandable since I got to see this movie for free, but overall I’m not too disappointed.
Why? Because I actually can’t wait to go see this movie again and soak it up all over again. This movie does the YGO! franchise justice. It’s smart, it's well written, the duel...man the duel OWNS this movie! Even if the dialog was terrible I’d probably want to see it again because this is the best duel I’ve ever seen in the franchise, and that’s saying something considering I’ve read the last several chapters of the manga (pretty intense stuff that ending)! But the story is also smart, it makes sense, and the best part is that the directors wrapped it up in a way that actually makes it fit INTO THE STORYLINE!!!! Unheard of! Even the “Dragon Ball Z” movies didn’t accomplish that. Now I know some of you are disappointed in this review, I must say I am too. I walked into the movie hoping that I could come home and just shred the film to pieces, but the truth of the matter is that “Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie” is actually very good, and if you weren’t going to see it because 4Kids were the ones that were making it then I am here to tell you to please reconsider, because I honestly believe that if you are a fan of YGO! then you will love this movie. Gosh, I think that’s really all I can say about the movie now. Now here’s hoping that you guys will all go see it. Just keep this in mind when you walk into the theater: It may be better then I think it will be.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -
Note: This review was originally published on the website "Yu-Gi-Oh! Uncensored!"