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Arguably, Transformers: The Movie can be seen as a 90-minute toy commercial, but it still works as a movie. It has a dramatic narrative and characters who are clearly drawn. Yu-Gi-Oh!, though, is a 90-minute card-game commercial. Instead of adventuring vicariously through its characters, you merely watch characters who themselves adventure vicariously through their card games. Twice removed from the action, the experience is less like playing a video game than like watching someone else play a video game.
Characters enter turn-based battles using magic cards, but the rules are so convoluted that you wonder if the film's writers aren't just making it up as they go. Player 1 will say something like, "This card brings out my defense elf, and this card brings out my three Egyptian gods, but now this card will sacrifice all four so I can bring out my unbeatable blue-eyed dragon," to which Player 2 says, "Well, my light pyramid card somehow renders all that obsolete. I win." With the lack of comprehensible rules goes any drama, so kids may enjoy this feature-length commercial, but it fails as cinema.