A card game – Duel Monsters – where players control mighty monsters and mystical magic has awakened the ancient Egyptian spirit of Anubis, an evil force intent on turning the world into an ashen netherworld. It is up to Yami Yugi and Yugi Moto – two distinct entities sharing the same body due to the mysterious Millenium Puzzle – to save the world by facing off against their heated rival Seto Kaiba in a life-or-death match of Duel Monsters. But when Yami’s spirit and those of his friend’s are trapped in the strange Pyramid of Light and Anubis’ power grows, can Yugi make the right moves and save the planet?

If that made any sense, than you must be one of those legions of tweeners out there whom have discarded their “Pokémon” decks and entered into the world “Yu-Gi-Oh!,” a new Japanese import every bit as annoying and obnoxious as its Pikachu-dependent precursor. For the rest of us, welcome to an 80-minute commercial designed solely to introduce kids to new collector cards and characters all pre-packaged for easy consumption. It’s “Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie,” and if you’re not already one of the converted than don’t expect to be yelling anything other than “Yu-Gi-No!” while trying to sit through this impenetrable mess of an animated feature.

Subtitled “Pyramid of Light,” this isn’t so much a movie as it is three episodes of the WB’s hit Saturday morning series meshed together and rushed into theaters. Not that the mass of (mostly male) kids in the packed preview audience seemed to mind as they ate up every moment before rushing out the auditorium in a mad dash to score free promotional gizmos. While the adults did little more than groan, sleep or shrug their shoulders, the kids cheered whenever Yugi played a mighty card, clapped when Yami cracked the Pyramid of Light’s secrets and exploded when the fearsome Egyptian God Cards were put into play. In short, they ate it up, and you could just imagine the corporate honchos whom greenlit this monstrosity giggling furiously as images of dollar signs passed right before their eyes.

From my perspective, the problem isn’t whether or not “Yu-Gi-Oh!” is any good – it obviously isn’t – but how the heck do you review it. This isn’t a feature, it’s a commercial, and there isn’t anything approaching story, narration or structure to be found. None of it makes a lick of sense and the editing is so fast and furious, and the sound design and scoring so overpowering, the only thing I could do other than scratch my head was wish I had some aspirin to deal with the omnipresent headache.