Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe reminded me of Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger. Both movies unwisely spend an inordinate amount of time treating its main character like a dork. Like that film, once it stops seeing its hero as a joke and embraces the source material in the correct spirit, it kicks a lot of ass. If the screenwriters didn’t try to beat the critics to the punch by poking fun at He-Man instead of properly propping him up as the iconic character that he is, this could’ve been a classic. Fortunately, the last act is a legitimately great Masters of the Universe adaptation. Maybe if there is a sequel (although the low box office receipts suggest otherwise) the filmmakers can use the momentum they gained in the last twenty minutes and carry it into the next movie.
Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) is stuck in a dead-end job on Earth. When his home world of Eternia is threatened by the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto), his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes) brings Adam home to save the day. When he wields The Sword of Power, Adam becomes the super-strong He-Man and does battle with Skeletor’s legions of minions.
I could’ve done without some of the dopey humor in the early going, but once the action switches over to Eternia, the film gets markedly better. The humor is actually funny in this section too, especially when it leans into the campy gay innuendo between He-Man and Skeletor, which is often priceless. (I especially liked the scene where Skeletor gets inside of He-Man’s head and they lift weights in a gym.)
Say what you will about Leto, but he is uproarious in this. He takes the character of Skeletor and amps things up to Frank N. Furter levels of campiness. He deftly walks the tightrope of the character we know and love from the cartoon with the modern-day meme version. Idris Elba is also quite good as Duncan, He-Man’s teacher, and gets the best-defined character arc of the film. As He-Man, Galitzine is solid for the most part. It’s just that the movie does him a disservice by turning him into a total cheeseball for half the running time.
Coming from someone who had all the toys and playsets as a kid, I enjoyed seeing that world realized on the big screen. I got a kick out of seeing guys like Trap Jaw, Moss Man, and Ram Man in a big-budget epic. I did however feel bad for poor Fisto. Yes, he has a funny name. We get it. This is one joke that the movie runs into the ground. It almost felt like the film was trying to make an over/under Kalshi bet of how many Fisto jokes it could squeeze into two hours.
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