Every few years, they try to bring back He-Man, as they’ve done with the new film Masters of the Universe, which means that every few years, I think, “Do people care about He-Man?” I mean, I watched the cartoon growing up, but it wasn’t … anything. The original Filmation show only lasted two years, and it’s known better as a seller of toys than for its magical and mystical adventures. We all remember Prince Adam’s transformation into He-Man — the one where he grabs his sword and yells, “I have the power!” which was always awesome — because it’s the only thing worth remembering.
Also, that was four decades ago. The new Masters of the Universe is, by all intents and purposes, a film for children, using an IP I doubt they care about even a little bit. What, then, is the point? To sell more toys? Who the hell is buying these toys? Who is this for?
The film starts with plenty of “Yeah, I vaguely remember a character that looked like that,” with characters like Idris Elba’s Man-at-Arms or “Sure, this feels like a cartoon,” in what I suppose is a good way. Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine, played as a child by Artie Wilkinson-Hunt), future leader of Castle Grayskull and the planet Eternia, is but a young man when Skeletor (Jared Leto) attacks the kingdom and takes control, effectively banishing the boy until he’s old enough to return and claim what’s rightfully his. You may or may not be surprised to hear that this turns out to be an elaborate “You’re probably wondering how I got here” explanation of how Adam ended up in … Oklahoma City.
Now, this is not the first He-Man live-action film. The 1987 movie, also called Masters of the Universe, was produced by the infamous Cannon Group, a production company notorious for getting itself into financial holes it couldn’t dig out of. A fantasy epic of the highest quality was a literal check they couldn’t cash. As a result, He-Man (Dolph Lundgren, who makes an extended cameo appearance in the new film) spends a lot of time on Earth because that’s a lot cheaper than building the sets of Eternia. No money, no magical kingdom.
I could not believe it when they made the same mistake again. Anyone who was hoping for a real, honest-to-God He-Man movie — I’m assuming they are out there — got bamboozled twice! In this case, Adam works a human resources job he hates, doing nothing more than giving Sasheer Zamata the space to do some workplace humor (she earns the only laugh I managed throughout the whole film). If you thought the Casino Planet in The Last Jedi was bad, what if it was Earth?
Granted, he’s only stuck on Earth for about 20 minutes, but it’s the number one script pitfall for them to avoid, and the four credited screenwriters still couldn’t avoid it. The Last Jedi only takes place on the Casino Planet for 11 minutes, and we still fuss at it. For Masters of the Universe, it’s 20 valuable minutes of an egregious 140-minute runtime.
The next hour or so on Eternia is standard stuff. Galitzine (Bottoms, The Idea of You) certainly looks the part, though the script (two additional people have story credits on this film! That’s six people!) does him no favors. Camila Mendes (Riverdale, Upgraded) plays his love interest, Teela, and gets her first crack at an action epic after a filmography filled with smaller parts in smaller movies. She’s well-suited for it.
Leto (Tron: Ares, Thirty Seconds to Mars, countless allegations of being a terrible human being) is at least scary as Skeletor, which makes his casting obvious. He could be played by anyone, however, as he’s totally covered up by the makeup. (Similarly, Kristen Wiig voices a robot, and her day rate is probably not worth her contribution.) He’s joined in his quest for world domination by Evil-Lyn, played by Alison Brie (Freelance, Together), who doesn’t get much to do, but she’s always welcome. If there’s anyone I would allow to usurp my kingdom, it’s her.
Director Travis Knight (the filmmaker behind Kubo and the Two Strings and Bumblebee and the CEO of the stop-motion studio Laika — how do we feel about CEOs directing movies?) has made his He-Man movie in the house style of Marvel Studios, only this isn’t a Marvel film. He’s so clearly doing James Gunn doing Guardians of the Galaxy, and I found it a little embarrassing. There’s a sequence set to “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes — a song already used to similar effect in recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Resident Evil entries, as well as the trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter movie — but it only lasts about 30 seconds (presumably because it’s expensive) before Daniel Pemberton’s public domain-sounding score takes back over.
The Marvel thing is so stale; I can’t believe people are still aping it. Are we seriously still doing “Well, that just happened” humor in the Year of our Lord 2026? Do we still need to stop right after something cool happens so that everyone can comment on it and undercut it? (Which doesn’t even touch on the feeling of sameness this movie provides. I’ve seen Idris Elba do this exact thing before in a Marvel movie: Thor!) There’s nothing inherently wrong with finding the humor in treating Mattel products like the monomyth — we’ve learned that it’s possible to make a good Dungeons and Dragons movie and a self-aware Barbie movie, two things we never considered possible before those films came out — but you have to pull it off. Otherwise, you come across as pitiful and sardonic.
The movie is for kids, I suppose (I could do without the fisting joke, but maybe that’s just me), yet I simply can’t understand why they would care. That also doesn’t give it a pass to be lazy or silly or 140 minutes long. Masters of the Universe is representative of everything we’re doing wrong, and very little of what we do right (Alison Brie) in modern moviemaking. This is particularly evident after a box office weekend where two original, independent, auteur-driven films left an even more important and influential IP, Star Wars, in the dust. I’ll have another round of Obsession or Backrooms before any bottom-shelf He-Man, please.
Review Courtesy of Patrick J. Regal
Feature Image Credit to Amazon MGM Studios