“I believe in the heart of the cards!”- Yu-Gi I believe I would have rather been shot in the face and then stomped on by an elephant than go see this movie. I know you’re asking why…not only why I went to see it, but why I’m taking a cheap shot at a movie we all know will suck. My brother is a Yu-Gi-Oh fan. He has the cards, the shirts, the games…and he begged me to take him to see it. I’m a softie at heart (when I’m not ripping apart movies that I hate), so I agreed to take him, if nothing else for the comedic value of the film. Now why review it..? Because this movie was unintended comedy GOLD. I’ll be honest, I could write a novel explaining why it sucked ass so much, but I’m limiting myself to the worst parts.
The stupid oversize pyramid necklace thing… First of all, a synopsis. The beginning narrative in the movie repeated about 230948 times that this COULD NEVER HAPPEN, but went on to talk about how it happened 5000 years ago. Ancient Egyptians obviously played cards for power. Annubis, god of the underworld, and Yu-Gi the pharaoh played cards, Annubis lost, Annubis was imprisoned. Fast forward 5000 years- Yu-Gi the teenage hero is master of the cards. There is no one who can beat his Egyptian God infinite power combination. He is revered, chased after by mobs, on the news- who knew that playing Yu-Gi-Oh cards was such a big deal…Yu-Gi puts together some pyramid puzzle that unknowingly unleashes Annubis (who also has some sort of pyramid puzzle necklace he wears too). Annubis wants to fight, uses Yu-Gi’s nemesis as his weapon, and challenges him! In the end, Yu-Gi (who somehow splits into Yu-Gi pharaoh and Yu-Gi kid during each fight) triumphs, Annubis dies. Obviously. Who didn’t see that one coming?
“Yu Gi” is attacked by scary stuff! “Secret molestation card!!!”
Now, mixed in this seemingly simple story was a menagerie of crap. We never really know WHY Annubis wants to take over the world, nor do we know what his Pyramid of Light is actually for. During the fight, Yu-Gi the kid gets sucked into Yu-Gi the pharaoh’s pyramid necklace- which just so happens to be a cheap rip-off of MC Escher’s staircase model. He runs around, meets up with his 2 friends that happened to get sucked in as well (just their souls, not the bodies), and they run off to fight mummies and Annubis inside the pyramid necklace. Sound confusing yet? Just wait. It gets better. Their crazy friend, Yakitaka or something to that effect, decides she needs to go help, so she falls off of a helicopter into the pyramid (but not her body, just her soul). Yu-Gi and friends question how she got there (all the while, the mummies stop chasing them long enough for them to have dialogue), and she rambles for a while about how they drew lines of friendship on their hands and friendship will save them all, blah blah blah.
This guy is here because he looked kinda cool.
All the while, a card game is being played inside this pyramid of light (only there because the CARD was played). Each monster they play springs to real life and destroys crap. MY GOD I thought it would NEVER EVER end. They just kept playing stuff and bringing it back to life and then pulling made-up cards out of their asses (and out of this odd arm contraption that looked like it was going to shoot cards out of it, but instead lit up when cards were placed on it and shot weird little unexplained hover units out of the sides). Their main card was the “Blue Eye Silver Dragon”, which eventually made the “Blue Eye Ultimate Dragon”, the “Blue Eye UBERDRAGON” and the “Blue Pinkeye Dragon”. It was probably resurrected 37 times from the “graveyard”.
One of the BILLION blue eyes white dragons; talk about racist.. I can’t complain. I knew “Yu-Gi-Oh!” was going to be bad. I endured it, even though I was ready to stab myself with a nacho chip halfway through. I think my final straw with this movie was when uber-card player “Pegasus” had a bad dream (bah, another offshoot story I am too lazy to explain) and said this exact line:”I shouldn’t have had that white-wine spritzer before bed!”
The mummies that were more annoying than “scary”, even Mum-ra :-/ Well let me tell you something, readers. You’re going to need far more than one white-wine spritzer to be able to stomach this movie. I’d recommend a keg, and a side of vodka. I give this my highest drunken rating: a 10. If we rated things more than 10, it would deserve that. A lack of plot, character development and an obsessive need to use a blue eyed dragon and pyramid necklaces makes this movie more than worthy of as many beers as you can take before you pass out.