This may be the first mainstream movie to have more in common with an infomercial than a screenplay.

The popular comic book/card game/TV show functions like a gaming
strategy guide come to life. At times anime monsters are duking it
out for real. And other times the audience is watching characters
play cards (complete with a running total of Attack Points and Life
Points at the bottom of the screen).

I guess if people can enjoy poker matches on ESPN then this isn’t all
that different.

While trying to encapsulate the plot of “Yu-Gi-Oh!” is only slightly
less cryptic than explaining “Mulholland Drive,” it has something to
do with Yugi Muto, a high schooler who is world champion of the title
game. (It’s played by dueling with an opponent using cards that have
different warriors, magicians and monsters each with special
abilities. The trick is learning how to combine or subtract cards for
maximum impact.)

Yugi is also the possessor of an artifact from “long ago when the
pyramids were still young” known as the Millennium Puzzle. When
solved it summons the spirit of an ancient pharaoh who partially
inhabits Yugi. But it also triggers the wrath of Anubis, the Egyptian
god of death. The villain decides to take revenge on the pharaoh/Yugi
by stacking the deck of Yugi’s rival, Seto Kaiba, a rich kid who is
obsessed with defeating the youngster.

Only when Yugi and his friends get trapped inside a pyramid and are
forced to contend with Anubis’ minions does the film ever generate
any tension. Otherwise, it’s one “card battle brought to life” after
another.

Most of the creatures and their abilities are intriguing. The names
are fun by themselves: Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, Saggi the Dark
Clown, Obelisk the Tormentor. The “sport” seems rather creative in
how it raids all types of cultural mythologies and weapons of science
from across the ages. Thus, mechanical tanks go head to head with
conniving woodland elves.

Watching the film gave me an appreciation of the chess-like complexity involved in dueling. After all, the Japanese-to-English translation of “Yu-Gi-Oh!” is “King of Games.”

But this is a review of the MOVIE, not the game. And spending an hour
and a half with this choppy animated effort left me with many questions.

• Do preteens in the audience have any idea what the characters mean
  when they use words such as conundrum, postulating, whence and
  stratagem?
• Why does Seto Kaiba have a K.C. Royals logo adorning his belongings?
• Is there a reason that Max-a-Million Pegasus – the character in the
  movie who supposedly invented the game – is depicted as gay? He
  actually awakens from a nightmare by saying, “No more white wine
  spritzers before bedtime.”
• Why would Warner Bros. decide to screen this movie for the press,
  but 20th Century Fox put a critical embargo on “Alien vs. Predator.”
• Does anybody remember Pokemon?