Yûgiô: Gekijô-ban 2004

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: From the endless product placement to its attempt to reel viewers in with free trading cards at the door, it all adds up to a 90-minute commercial. Read more

Ellen Fox, Chicago Tribune: Much of the movie is devoted to the boys dueling card-to-card. And so most the dialogue, forgive me fans, sounds something like this: "I'm going to thwart your Egyptian God cards with my Rare Metal Dragon card!" Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: Unless you are one of the Japanese phenomenon's army of devoted young followers, much of the film's story line and machinations will be Greek, or at the very least Egyptian, to you. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: The latest kiddie con job to float over from Tokyo. Read more

Megan Lehmann, New York Post: Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie, a hyperventilating feature-length advertisement for Japanese trading cards, would be hilarious if it weren't so dreadfully cynical. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Like the gods, the trading cards are capricious, with ever-changing rules and strategies so intricate that only Yu-Gi-Ohlogists will fully enjoy this adventure. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: Kids will eat Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie up. The rest of us will have to wait for the translation. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: This cartoon based on the popular and complicated card game might as well be written in another language. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Effectively a strategy guide and commercial in vaguely filmic form. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: Feels like a 91-minute infomercial selling the popular collectible-card game. Read more

Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe: Yu-Gi-Oh! is so flat as to make the card game on which it is based seem positively three-dimensional. Read more

Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly: A feature-length anime commercial. Read more

Nancy Churnin, Dallas Morning News: A treat for the fervent young fans who remain, and a true test of devotion for their accompanying parents, who may need all the help they can get figuring out the storyline. Read more

Lily Burk, L.A. Weekly: Adults: If your child forces you to go to Yu-Gi-Oh!, remember that there's no law against iPods in movie theaters. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: If your pulse quickens when you hear lines like, 'Not so fast! I still have two cards face down, and they'll bring down your life points to a measly 1000!', then Yu-Gi-Oh is the movie you've been waiting for all summer. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: A feature-length sales pitch aimed at kids. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: A feature-length promotion for the trading cards your kids will beg you to buy all the way home. Read more

Dave Kehr, New York Times: With Yu-Gi-Oh!, a Japanese animated film, the line between entertainment and advertising has been emphatically erased. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: A fantasy kitsch tale. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: No one without a working knowledge of the fabulously profitable Manga-turned-gamer phenomenon will find it easy to enter here. Read more

Sara Gebhardt, Washington Post: There's nothing inspiring about Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie, unless you count the way it compels kids to continue to support the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise. Read more