It’s been nearly 40 years since the colossal financial failure of Cannon Films’ live-action Masters of the Universe signaled the cultural decline of Mattel’s successful sword-and-sorcery sci-fi media franchise. After five years of captivating promiscuous ’80s kids like this critic, we’ve mostly moved on to other things. But in Mattel’s media, like in Masters of the Universe, no one actually dies. Since then, the denizens of Castle Grayskull have continued to live on in faint undead form through various comic book and toy series revivals, and most recently, through the quagmire of Netflix’s animated content. So, in the “this time” mentality that’s been influencing so many Hollywood studio decisions these days, we’ve arrived at another live-action version of “Masters of the Universe.” Sure, it’s bigger in every way, and it would be better if you didn’t particularly mind the shy badness of the first film.
But does anyone really need it? If the He-Man movies were taken off the market in 2026, would you notice and mourn their existence? Travis Knight’s films are so loaded with jokes about outdated coolness that they sometimes seem to apologize for their very existence. “Yeah, I know, but that’s how they came to be,” says Adam the Flaxen Warrior, identifying his signature weapon, the Sword of Power, in the introductory narration. (Of course, Adam is better remembered as He-Man, but the movie also avoids that lame nickname until the end.) We know that the green screen effect is a blatant fabrication. The overall geekiness of the company is lampshaded throughout the Comic Book Store set. At some point, this wink-wink nature feels dated, but not in a way that recalls the 1980s. Instead, the early Marvel Cinematic Universe jokes of the early Obama era come to mind strongly.
But the good-humoured humility in “Masters of the Universe” largely dissipates as it stretches toward the two-hour mark and well beyond it. By the 141-minute mark, the situation of the event is assumed, despite the initial antics. Knight, the animator behind the Leica-inspired stop-motion epic Kubo and the Two Strings, takes the form of creating an impossibly fascinating work from the ashes of a hopeless franchise. His brilliant live-action debut, “Bumblebee,” remains the only “Transformers” movie to this day. But his liveliest instincts are ultimately thwarted by a multifaceted script, credited to parties including Laika’s Chris Butler, Lost City’s Aaron and Adam Nee, and action series mainstay Dave Callaham. The script tries to be both serious and ironic at the same time. Can we really care about the hero’s fight for the soul of his kingdom while nodding and smiling at his flimsy leather loincloth?
When the movie comes close to pulling off that impossible double, it’s largely thanks to the guy in the loincloth. British star Nicholas Galitzine has already proven himself to be a game-comic performer in The Bottoms and The Hundred Nights, undermining his bubbly masculinity with an unfortunate amount of goofy energy. As an interplanetary warrior whose powers have been diminished by years of exile on Earth and, worse, a dead-end desk job, his deft and baffling swapping of alpha and beta male personas involves a premise thinner than most people can fathom.
We first meet Adam, a delicate, two-headed preteen (played by Artie Wilkinson Hunt), prince of the idyllic planet of Eternia, still overwhelmed by the combat training imposed on him by his contemptuous father, King Landor (James Purefoy). He develops a closer bond with Commander-in-Chief Duncan (Idris Elba) and his daughter Teela (Ale Farrell), but is left alone when Eternia is invaded by the skull-faced villain Skeletor (Jared Leto, fully digital and with a very fruity accent) and his parents captured. A sorcerer (Morena Baccarin) manages to whisk him away to Earth along with the kingdom’s important power sword, but he soon loses it during a spaceflight.
And this is the inside story that Adam (now the plucky Galitzine) has been telling bewildered Earthlings over the past 15 years as he tries to live a normal office drone life while seeking the sword to get back home. When he is finally located, a signal is sent to a grown-up Teela (Camila Mendes) to retrieve him. This is as the last hope for Eternia, which was nearly destroyed under Skeletor’s rule. Masters of the Universe is most enjoyable as a fish-out-of-water story on either side of the planetary divide. Adam’s insistence that he is from another world causes others to distance him from him, both at work and on dates. Meanwhile, back on Eternia, his pro-corporate proposals to “de-escalate tensions” and “start a dialogue” have little traction with the knucklehead combatants known as Ram Man and Fisto. (This is the second blockbuster of the year to feature a running fisting joke, after “Project Hail Mary,” and you’ll be wondering which attraction will make it officially trend.)
But things slow down considerably once Adam takes on a heroic He-Man transformation that gives him full command of the sword, so to speak, and at least spares the original model’s frail bowl cut. The movie zips from one similar fight scene to the next, with Skeletor only occasionally injecting ripe innuendos to spice up the fight scenes a bit. He is especially in awe of Adam’s oversized thighs. I’m sure Skeletor would think so. In any case, there’s more conflict between them than Adam and Teela’s colorless romance. (Incidentally, Adam’s twin, She-Ra, is almost entirely absent from the proceedings, pending production of a sequel, which isn’t exactly a welcome prospect by the time things finally end here).
There are flashes of wit and funny kitsch throughout. Mainly due to Guy Hendricks Diaz’s suitably flashy production design, which evokes medieval splendor without ever forgetting that the natural world in this story is plastic. Composer Daniel Pemberton also energetically revives the fantasy metal sound that defined the series’ original era. But it is a nostalgia trip that never belongs to the present, nor does it evoke any real cherished memories of the past. People over 40, who are most likely to be aware of everything here, certainly don’t need such lengthy reminders. Others may just be baffled that He-Man had so much power in the first place.
