Growing up in the 1990s, I have no nostalgia for the “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” franchise. What little I know of its iconic characters, dialogue and mannerisms comes not from the original cartoon or 1987 film, but instead a wide range of memes and jokes that riff on the ridiculousness of the source material.
By leaning into its earnest nature and hair-metal ethos, “Masters of the Universe” surprises by overcoming its generic hero’s journey and delivering the feature film equivalent of a Saturday morning cartoon.
The plot is a boilerplate superhero origin story. Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) is a Prince of Eternia, a disappointing child to his warrior father (James Purefoy) as he struggles to prove himself worthy through combat training. When Eternia is attacked by Skeletor (Jared Leto), a skull-faced villain in search of the Sword of Power, which promises whoever wields it God-like powers, Adam is sent away to Earth with the sword, which he promptly loses.
After years of searching, Adam finds the sword at a comic-book store and, upon retrieving it, inadvertently sends a signal into the great unknown letting friend and foe alike know where he and the sword are. Adam is reunited with his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes), and sets off on an adventure back home to find his own strength, both with the sword and without it, to battle Skeletor and save his home planet.
An out-of-this-world superhero spending his formative years on Earth, getting in touch with his humanity, before finally embracing his destiny as an all-powerful force for good is a trite story, told many times before in countless “Superman” or “Thor” movies. The action, the drama, the plot are all echoes of much better stories, yet “Masters of the Universe” still delights when it leans wholeheartedly into its silliness. In a clever bit of retconning, all of the absurd, on-the-nose character names are explained away as the musings of a 10-year-old Adam trying to explain his home world to any Earthling who will listen.
The story’s campiness is best exemplified by Leto’s turn as Skeletor. While I generally despise Leto’s tendency toward overacting, he chews scenery as the skull-faced supervillain, delivering a theatrical showy performance that is comical without minimizing the character’s violence.
In the burgeoning Mattel Cinematic Universe, He-Man is the masculine counterpoint to Barbie’s femininity. Where 2023’s “Barbie,” in the hands of the clever Greta Gerwig, deconstructed the sexist tropes of its source material, “Masters of the Universe” is much more superficial in its own lip service to building a bigger tent for masculinity. Even as men have made significant gains in emotional intelligence since the 1980s, becoming capable of solving problems without resorting to violence, this gender complexity is ill-suited for the morally simplistic world of good guys versus bad guys in which our himbo protagonist is ultimately reduced to a muscle man who punches enemies into submission.
Despite its overlong runtime and hypergeneric storytelling, “Masters of the Universe” is a delightful, breezy adventure story that thankfully never takes itself too seriously, which, given its hair-metal hero called He-Man, makes all the sense in the world.
A version of this review was posted at Curt On The Movies.
“Masters of the Universe” Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence/action, some suggestive material, and language. Running Time: 2 hours and 20 minutes. Directed by Travis Knight. Written by Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, David Callaham. Starring Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Morena Baccarin, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Kristen Wiig, Jared Leto and Idris Elba. Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi.
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