Genre: Action, Adventure, Animation, Fantasy

Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie

Directed by Hatsuki Tsuji

Written by Michael Pecoriello,

Matt Drdek, Lloyd Goldfine,

Norman Grossfield

Starring the voices of Dan Green, Amy Birnbaum, Eric Stuart

and Wayne Grayson

Classification: PG

Rating: *½

Psychedelic poster-art bursts of colour, apocalyptic violence and a message about the importance of friendship are blasted together in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie, the most recent of the Japanese-imported children's entertainments to hit the big screen.

Like its predecessors, Pokemon and Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh! (based on Katzuki Takahashi's original creation in 1996) is a vigorously cross-marketed product, with comics, collectable cards, games and a television series. Once again, it's a fantasy kitsch tale involving huge-eyed adolescent characters with dubbed, squawky American voices, who engage in duels involving a bestiary of supernatural creatures.

The hero of Yu-Gi-Oh! is named Yugi, a foppishly dressed teenaged boy with spiky blond-frosted hair who is the world champion of a game known as Duel Monsters. Yugi's helpers include his grandfather, wisecracking male friends Joey, Tristan and Tea, who sports the de rigueur teensy school-girl uniform.

Yugi's arch enemy is the former champion and snooty rich kid, Seto Kaiba, but this time out, he fights an enemy even more powerful and even archer. As fans of the television series know, Yugi has an ancient alter-ego, the Pharaoh, who looks exactly like him but speaks in a basso profundo, and has been around for 5,000 years.

As the movie starts, the Pharaoh's ancient nemesis, Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead, has awakened and is looking for trouble. Anubis, whose growl is loud enough to loosen dental fillings, is mud-coloured and several storeys tall and is determined to sink humanity under the sand dunes.

For reasons I couldn't discern, Yugi's alter-ego, the Pharaoh, decides to let the modern Yugi battle Anubis, while he plays cards with Seto. They take turns dealing out cards that summon dragons, sphinxes, knights, viruses and Egyptian gods, which do cacophonous battle.

Meanwhile Yugi has the job of going after the God of the Underworld and his legions of relentless-but-friable mummies. The action leaps back and forth between the card game and the maze battle, reaching the expected screen-exploding denouement. Yes, the odds seem hopelessly stacked against the boy game-player but have no fear: Yugi is playing with an extremely full deck.