Finally got to see YuGiOh the Movie for myself and find out what the hype was all about.
After watching it, all I can say is, I'm glad I didn't buy the ticket with my own money.
Before I begin, let me just say that those who say that the voice acting here is very good are both deaf and probably have the IQ level of a monkey's. That being said, let's begin.
Not much has changed in the YuGiOh movie. The animation is the same as the one that comes out on TV (virtually no color depth, light shading or added cels to enhance the fluidity of motions in the characters) and the voice actors are, with the exception of Kaiba and Pegasus, pure crap (then again, when was 4Kids ever known for good VAs? [insert sarcastic laugh here.])
For those of you who don't know or who haven't seen the flick yet, I discourage you from reading the rest of this because it's a spoiler. Basically the story revolves around Yugi Moto and how he is the King of Monsters, blah, blah, blah. We all know he became so darn good because once he finished completing the Millennium Puzzle, he was suddenly inhabited by the spirit of Pharoah. (No name for this Pharaoh. Why? I'd like to know that myself.)
Anyway, unbeknownst to Yugi, when he released Pharoah, he also released Anubis, the stereotypical ancient-uber-bad guy-come-back-to-life-to-continue-what-he-did-in-life: to (wait for it....) DESTROY THE WORLD (bum, bum, bum, dramatic reverb!) So its up to Yugi and his friends (mostly Yugi) to kick this guy's tuckus and send Anubis back from whence he came.
Pretty straightforward, no? Not to mention, predictable
The plot is very, very simple. Good guy runs into bad guy. Bad guy wants to destroy the world in the most horrible way possible (even though the reason for wanting to destroy said world is never discussed.) Good guy inevitably beats bad guy against all odds because good guy has the cause of justice going for him and everyone lives happily ever after, content once again that good has triumphed over evil (well, that's what wishful thinking is all about).
Character development is shot all to H-E double toothpicks. Those who are hardcore fans for YuGiOh will undoubtedly know which bozo is which and will probably ignore this lapse. But Joe Average? Fuggedaboutit! Before we really know what drives characters other than Yugi to do what they do, the next duel is on! Why does Joey keep talking tough even though he usually ends up flat on his face? Why do Yugi's friends keep trying to help him save the world when no one could care less whether they exist or not due to Yugi's overwhelming presence(he IS the star and title of the show.)? Why does Tea even try to show some scrap of independence and fire when in the end, she's nothing more than spare baggage? If Pegasus really wanted to keep the Shining Blue Eyes out of Kaiba's hands, why did he opt to duel with him instead of just having a whole battalion of guards smoke Kaiba-boy? In the end, why did Pegasus even bother saving Yugi's grandparent and friends when he was once the bad guy a long time ago? If Anubis was a powerful as he said he was, why didn't he just bring all of his monsters to life and and wreak havoc on the world instead of engaging Yugi in a duel? The fate of the world is on the line and you two are settling it with CARDS!?
In other words, what drives the characters to make the decisions the made? What makes them do what they do? Is any of this explored? Oh no, no, no.
So what we have are 2-Dimensional characters thrust into some meaningless but nevertheless visually entertaining dance and whom we wouldn't care less about if they died or not as long as Yugi came through.(Shonen Jump/4Kids Entertainment: "duh, We think that the game is so popular that even those who don't play the game know the show. So we trust that they, uh, will all under...unerst...get it. A-hyuk!")
The sense of excitement and suspense is also destroyed by Yugi being portrayed as the typical invincible male hero who can never do anything wrong and who always comes out at the top with the winning combination. How in blue blazes can you root for a guy you know will win anyways? Where's the fun in that? Like Kaiba, I was so waiting for him to finally trounce Yugi after hearing the little twerp preach about the heart of the cards and the power of friendship. But then I remembered, this is Yugi, the guy who never, EVER, gets anything as horrible as a bad hand or a bad draw. So I was forced to sit through a 90-min. movie waiting for the inevitable to happen. Yugi Wins Again. All I can say is: THANK GOD FOR ROOTBEER!
The dialogue is one of the most mediocre things I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. Never have I seen a movie filled to brimming with corny one-liners and clichés after clichés in a pathetic attempt to be funny. When Joey said, "I coulda been a contender," I was this close to flinging my drink at the screen (but you'd have to be crazy to throw away a perfectly good 2liters of rootbeer). I've heard better comebacks and lines from a turkey sandwich. I was looking for snappy and witty lines like the ones from Tarzan, Treasure Planet, The Power Puff girls or The Simpsons. Instead I got dialogue written by melodramatic halfwits who probably have delusions of being the next Shakespeare.
I think I could have ignored the horrible dialogue if the voice actors had just been brilliant VAs like Charlie Adler, Hank Azaria, April Winchell, Tom Kenny, Nick Backay, Nicole Sullivan, Emma Thompson or Richard Horvitz. Instead, I'm stuck with B-class people like Wayne Grayson and Dan Green!? AAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!
The sound and music is forgettable at best. Who sang these songs? The Alan Parson's Project or Wangchung? Ugh!
And the movie, like the TV series, can never just end without Yugi or one of his friends launching into their long rhetoric about the heart of the cards or the importance of the power of friendship. How in hell can the power of friendship influence the way the tides of a duel turns? Even if you got your whole crew of 20 backing you up, if you're going up against a guy with more experience and better cards and strategies, then you are going down. The only time the power of friendship works is if you take that crew of twenty of yours and mess up the guy who beat you in some dark alley and make a break for it before the cops come. That's the real power of friendship! When Yugi broke into his speech again during the final minutes, I had to tell myself "Must...resist...the...urge...to...fall...into...a. ..coma." Why do movies like Pokemon and YuGiOh and Beyblade never fail to preach? Talk about your self-righteous streak!
Perhaps the only redeeming parts of the movie were the showing of the new cards and monsters and the duels themselves which showed some pretty nifty combos and attacks and counterattacks that can be used in the game. Unfortunately only the card players will understand any of the duels.
All in all YuGiOh the Movie is a "watch once". Fans cannot blame the average movie watcher's ignorance of the game for them not liking the movie. The movie is nothing more than a longer version of the TV series. It's just not memorable. My dad has never heard of Tarzan, but he enjoyed the animated movie from Disney immensely. My mother has never read Treasure island but was glued to the screen when Treasure Planet came to town. YuGiOh preaches too much and patronizes kids waaay too much. Adults in the theater kept looking at their watches, praying for the flick to end while I was ready to screw the head of the next brat behind me who yelled "That's Blue Eyes White Dragon! I have that card!" To which his idiot companion responded with equal volume, "My Exodia can beat that!!"
I guess I'm just thankful that YuGiOh the Movie is not as brain dead as Dragonball Z.
For die-hard YuGiOh fans, you'll probably like this. For others looking for a movie with more depth and a meatier story, stay far, far, faaaaar away from this flick as humanly possible.
After watching it, all I can say is, I'm glad I didn't buy the ticket with my own money.
Before I begin, let me just say that those who say that the voice acting here is very good are both deaf and probably have the IQ level of a monkey's. That being said, let's begin.
Not much has changed in the YuGiOh movie. The animation is the same as the one that comes out on TV (virtually no color depth, light shading or added cels to enhance the fluidity of motions in the characters) and the voice actors are, with the exception of Kaiba and Pegasus, pure crap (then again, when was 4Kids ever known for good VAs? [insert sarcastic laugh here.])
For those of you who don't know or who haven't seen the flick yet, I discourage you from reading the rest of this because it's a spoiler. Basically the story revolves around Yugi Moto and how he is the King of Monsters, blah, blah, blah. We all know he became so darn good because once he finished completing the Millennium Puzzle, he was suddenly inhabited by the spirit of Pharoah. (No name for this Pharaoh. Why? I'd like to know that myself.)
Anyway, unbeknownst to Yugi, when he released Pharoah, he also released Anubis, the stereotypical ancient-uber-bad guy-come-back-to-life-to-continue-what-he-did-in-life: to (wait for it....) DESTROY THE WORLD (bum, bum, bum, dramatic reverb!) So its up to Yugi and his friends (mostly Yugi) to kick this guy's tuckus and send Anubis back from whence he came.
Pretty straightforward, no? Not to mention, predictable
The plot is very, very simple. Good guy runs into bad guy. Bad guy wants to destroy the world in the most horrible way possible (even though the reason for wanting to destroy said world is never discussed.) Good guy inevitably beats bad guy against all odds because good guy has the cause of justice going for him and everyone lives happily ever after, content once again that good has triumphed over evil (well, that's what wishful thinking is all about).
Character development is shot all to H-E double toothpicks. Those who are hardcore fans for YuGiOh will undoubtedly know which bozo is which and will probably ignore this lapse. But Joe Average? Fuggedaboutit! Before we really know what drives characters other than Yugi to do what they do, the next duel is on! Why does Joey keep talking tough even though he usually ends up flat on his face? Why do Yugi's friends keep trying to help him save the world when no one could care less whether they exist or not due to Yugi's overwhelming presence(he IS the star and title of the show.)? Why does Tea even try to show some scrap of independence and fire when in the end, she's nothing more than spare baggage? If Pegasus really wanted to keep the Shining Blue Eyes out of Kaiba's hands, why did he opt to duel with him instead of just having a whole battalion of guards smoke Kaiba-boy? In the end, why did Pegasus even bother saving Yugi's grandparent and friends when he was once the bad guy a long time ago? If Anubis was a powerful as he said he was, why didn't he just bring all of his monsters to life and and wreak havoc on the world instead of engaging Yugi in a duel? The fate of the world is on the line and you two are settling it with CARDS!?
In other words, what drives the characters to make the decisions the made? What makes them do what they do? Is any of this explored? Oh no, no, no.
So what we have are 2-Dimensional characters thrust into some meaningless but nevertheless visually entertaining dance and whom we wouldn't care less about if they died or not as long as Yugi came through.(Shonen Jump/4Kids Entertainment: "duh, We think that the game is so popular that even those who don't play the game know the show. So we trust that they, uh, will all under...unerst...get it. A-hyuk!")
The sense of excitement and suspense is also destroyed by Yugi being portrayed as the typical invincible male hero who can never do anything wrong and who always comes out at the top with the winning combination. How in blue blazes can you root for a guy you know will win anyways? Where's the fun in that? Like Kaiba, I was so waiting for him to finally trounce Yugi after hearing the little twerp preach about the heart of the cards and the power of friendship. But then I remembered, this is Yugi, the guy who never, EVER, gets anything as horrible as a bad hand or a bad draw. So I was forced to sit through a 90-min. movie waiting for the inevitable to happen. Yugi Wins Again. All I can say is: THANK GOD FOR ROOTBEER!
The dialogue is one of the most mediocre things I have ever had the displeasure of hearing. Never have I seen a movie filled to brimming with corny one-liners and clichés after clichés in a pathetic attempt to be funny. When Joey said, "I coulda been a contender," I was this close to flinging my drink at the screen (but you'd have to be crazy to throw away a perfectly good 2liters of rootbeer). I've heard better comebacks and lines from a turkey sandwich. I was looking for snappy and witty lines like the ones from Tarzan, Treasure Planet, The Power Puff girls or The Simpsons. Instead I got dialogue written by melodramatic halfwits who probably have delusions of being the next Shakespeare.
I think I could have ignored the horrible dialogue if the voice actors had just been brilliant VAs like Charlie Adler, Hank Azaria, April Winchell, Tom Kenny, Nick Backay, Nicole Sullivan, Emma Thompson or Richard Horvitz. Instead, I'm stuck with B-class people like Wayne Grayson and Dan Green!? AAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!
The sound and music is forgettable at best. Who sang these songs? The Alan Parson's Project or Wangchung? Ugh!
And the movie, like the TV series, can never just end without Yugi or one of his friends launching into their long rhetoric about the heart of the cards or the importance of the power of friendship. How in hell can the power of friendship influence the way the tides of a duel turns? Even if you got your whole crew of 20 backing you up, if you're going up against a guy with more experience and better cards and strategies, then you are going down. The only time the power of friendship works is if you take that crew of twenty of yours and mess up the guy who beat you in some dark alley and make a break for it before the cops come. That's the real power of friendship! When Yugi broke into his speech again during the final minutes, I had to tell myself "Must...resist...the...urge...to...fall...into...a. ..coma." Why do movies like Pokemon and YuGiOh and Beyblade never fail to preach? Talk about your self-righteous streak!
Perhaps the only redeeming parts of the movie were the showing of the new cards and monsters and the duels themselves which showed some pretty nifty combos and attacks and counterattacks that can be used in the game. Unfortunately only the card players will understand any of the duels.
All in all YuGiOh the Movie is a "watch once". Fans cannot blame the average movie watcher's ignorance of the game for them not liking the movie. The movie is nothing more than a longer version of the TV series. It's just not memorable. My dad has never heard of Tarzan, but he enjoyed the animated movie from Disney immensely. My mother has never read Treasure island but was glued to the screen when Treasure Planet came to town. YuGiOh preaches too much and patronizes kids waaay too much. Adults in the theater kept looking at their watches, praying for the flick to end while I was ready to screw the head of the next brat behind me who yelled "That's Blue Eyes White Dragon! I have that card!" To which his idiot companion responded with equal volume, "My Exodia can beat that!!"
I guess I'm just thankful that YuGiOh the Movie is not as brain dead as Dragonball Z.
For die-hard YuGiOh fans, you'll probably like this. For others looking for a movie with more depth and a meatier story, stay far, far, faaaaar away from this flick as humanly possible.