The Media Man Reviews: Masters of the Universe

Certainly been a while since we've had a He-Man movie, hasn't it? In fact, I think this is the first He-Man movie we've had since the infamous 1987 film!

When you're a media enthusiast like I am, chances are you'll at least be familiar with the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe franchise. Created by Mattel, the same toy company behind Barbie and the current owners of the Thomas the Tank Engine franchise, He-Man is up there with Transformers as one of the biggest toy brands of the 1980s and even had a cartoon series to its name as well. The franchise has also had a live-action movie, several comics, another cartoon in 2002, two different Neflix series in 2021, several video games and of course, its signature toyline that started it all. The franchise even had a comic book crossover with Injustice of all things! No really!

So now comes the big question: "Media Man, what's your history with He-Man?" Eh...sorry to say, I don't have much to tell you. I was never really into He-Man that much as a kid. The ONLY exposure I've ever had with the series was back when the 2002 cartoon aired and I only remember watching a few episodes, but not enough to say I was following it that closely. I also remember seeing adverts for the toys and seeing the Nostalgia Critic's (yes, I used to watch the Nostalgia Critic, don't judge me!) review of the 1987 movie, but aside from that, I've had very little exposure to He-Man. Even with the toyline, the only He-Man toy I ever owned was a toy of He-Man's sword of power that could light up and say his signature "I have the power!" line. Do NOT take this to mean I hate the franchise or anything. I was just into other things and He-Man didn't catch on with me as much as those other things did. I do plan to watch the 2002 show again, this time in full, to get a better feel for it.

So that was my thought process when going into this movie. I've had little exposure to He-Man, so maybe this movie could get me interested in the franchise and show me what I've been missing out on. Also it's directed by Travis Knight, whom is best known for directing Kubo and the Two Strings and Bumblebee and for being a director, producer and animator at Laika Studios, the animation studio behind Corpse Bride, Kubo and the Two Strings, ParaNorman, Coraline and Missing Link. That alone had me interested since I've enjoyed his work on Kubo and Bumblebee.

So does this movie have the power of Grayskull behind it? Or is this thing an evil plot conjured up by Skeletor? For the sake of Eternia, let's find the answer...

Section 1: The Story

It's the story of Adam, a prince who lives in the world of Eternia and is being trained to be a powerful warrior. But his life changes forever when the villainous Skeletor invaders the Kingdom of Eternos and tries to claim the Sword of Power for himself. Adam is transported to Earth to keep the sword out of Skeletor's reach, but he loses it. So Adam has to find the sword, get back to Eternia and unleash the power of He-Man in order to stop Skeletor's evil plot...

Now keep in mind, this review is coming from the perspective of an outsider who hasn't had a lot of exposure to He-Man, so chances are I might misunderstand or misinterpret somethings in this review. If I get anything wrong about the He-Man franchise, then feel free to correct me...politely if you please.

Now then, how does this movie fare up? As an adaptation of the He-Man franchise, it seems alright from what I can see. The characters all seem to look pretty accurate to the source material with He-Man and Skeletor themselves especially looking very spot-on and we get most of the iconic He-Man cast featured here with Teela and Man-At-Arms (AKA Duncan) getting the lion's share of plot and focus. Whether these characters are faithfully portrayed and characterized, I'll let actual He-Man fans decide on that since this is no place for me to judge. Even Castle Grayskull looks faithfully recreated here and of course, we get to hear He-Man say his iconic "By the power of Grayskull! I have the power!" line when he transforms into the famous hero. I may not know much about He-Man, but I KNOW for a fact this movie is a far more faithful adaptation of the franchise than the 1987 movie with the characters and settings looking like how they should do, a bit of a cheesy tone and how we get to see He-Man kicking ass and beating up enemies. I'm sure there's a lot of fan-service in here that I've missed due to not being a fan, but I did at least find out that apparently, Dolph Lundgren (the actor who played He-Man in the 1987 movie) did have a cameo in here as a buff guy at a gym who passes on advice to Adam at one point in the movie, so that was neat. The old He-Man passing on wisdom to the new, very fan-service-y but in a way that's wholesome and not too on the nose. Also the 4 Non Blondes song "What's Up?" is featured at one point in the movie, which probably really pleased the fans due to the song being the basis of a popular He-Man meme that has him singing it. So yeah, as an adaptation, it seems OK and the story is handled in a way that doesn't leave outsiders like me feeling totally lost while having little Easter Eggs that only the fans will be able to notice.

But how is Masters of the Universe as a movie? Eh...not very good I'm sorry to say. If this was my first ever impression of the He-Man franchise, then it would've been a bad one.

The biggest problem I have with the movie, and subsequently why I didn't enjoy it, is that it feels like I'm watching a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. And yes, I DO mean that as a negative! This film has all the problems that MCU films have: their inability to just be a movie and prioritizes stupid, annoying jokes over good stories and compelling characters. It's annoying as s**t when the MCU does and it's definitely annoying as s**t here! I thought we were past the stage where movies feel the need to constantly act self-aware or make meta commentary on the source material as if they're embarrassed to be related to it, but nope! This movie seems to think we're still in the age of MCU hype and thus tonally, it acts like an MCU movie in where it can't go five seconds without telling a joke! AND THEY'RE NOT FUNNY JOKES EITHER! Only about 5% of the humour in this film is actually funny. The rest of it is just obnoxious and groanworthy. This movie just can't let itself have a moment to be awesome or badass or emotional or anything like that! It just constantly, CONSTANTLY feels the need to have a quippy line or a moment of awkwardness in an annoying attempt to be funny, and it rarely ever works! The most annoying moment for me was one particularly badass looking moment where Prince Adam and the other heroes break out of Skeletor's dungeon and we get this cool slow-motion walk with them all together while Queen's "Princes of the Universe" roars in the background...and then they ruin it with a dumb joke. Just let the movie be a movie, OK?! Don't follow the MCU's obnoxious style of writing where it thinks we need a dumb joke every five seconds! It doesn't make your movie enjoyable or entertaining, it makes it annoying! It's also baffling we have this kind of tone, because this is a Travis Knight movie! His movies are NOT like this! Watch Kubo or Bumblebee and you'll be confused by how vastly different they feel compared to this! This does not feel like a Travis Knight movie at all, and that's a damn shame.

OK, so let's put the humour aside for now. Is the story itself at least any good? Eh...not really. It's a very paint-by-numbers superhero origin story in where the hero has to rise up and become the hero they're destined to be and defeat the villain in the end. It plays this type of story incredibly straight with no surprises or twists on the formula, thus making for a painfully predictable story that is uninteresting to watch as a result. From the word "go", you know where this story will go and you won't be surprised at all by what happens in it.

And then there's the film's incredibly confusing decision to set a portion of the story on Earth. Just...why?! Again, I'm no expert on the He-Man franchise, but I'm at least aware the 1987 movie had the characters end up on Earth and I'm pretty sure people hated that aspect of the movie. Also, I'm pretty sure the franchise itself usually takes place entirely on Eternia. Fans, I need your help here, does the franchise usually go to our world, or is it just a weird thing these live-action films keep doing? In this film's case, it's more pointless and unnecessary than it was in the 1987 movie, mainly because we're not even on Earth for that long! I estimate that at least 10-15 minutes of the film's two-hour run time is actually set on Earth and once Teela takes Adam back to Eternia, that's it! Earth is just gone from the plot and the only time we ever see it again is when Skeletor is beating up Adam and for some weird reason, we keep flashing back to Adam's time on Earth while Skeletor shows up to comment about it. Why even bother bringing our world into this movie if the movie itself was so quick to move on from it? Now granted, Adam's time on Earth did give him a sense of empathy and more or les shaped his diplomatic approach to a conflict and it also helps him realize the true power was within him the whole time. That is true...but did we really need to waste time in our world for Adam to learn those lessons? Why couldn't he have just gone into hiding and learned those lessons on Eternia? It would've been time better spent that way and also saved us a lot of cringe too since, big shock, the scenes on Earth are the worst part of the movie and where we get the worst jokes too. The Earth scenes should've been dropped entirely and the movie should've stayed on Eternia, plain and simple.

There's also a part of the movie that really confuses me. We have Adam giving the names of the other masters like he's giving them nicknames and all and the characters act confused about it, but never bother to tell him their real names. I...I don't get it. For guys like Mekaneck, Fisto, Ram-Man and Trap Jaw, those ARE their names, aren't they? They're not nicknames Adam gives them all, are they? And if they're not their real names, why don't they ever correct Adam about it and end up taking the names as their own in the end? It's just so confusing and I don't get it...

Of course, being a He-Man movie, we get a lot of action scenes too. They're just OK at best for me, nothing particularly that grand or amazing. The climax with He-Man vs. Skeletor especially felt very disappointing and anti-climactic. The moment Adam becomes He-Man again, it's game over for Skeletor and it undermines the menace he portrayed earlier. A final battle with the hero and villain should feel the most epic, not underwhelming. Though they did make it look really brutal with how powerful his punches looked...

Honestly, this film just felt like 140 minutes of my life I'll never get back. With a painfully generic story, an obnoxious tone, confusing writing decisions and action that isn't all that special now we've had an over abundance of superhero films in the previous decade, this really isn't a good place to start with the He-Man franchise...

Section 2: The Characters

I know He-Man fans will be happy to see these iconic characters back on the big screen, and looking far more faithful to their iconic appearances too. For me? This movie isn't a great example of these characters.

Let's begin with our hero, Prince Adam (played by Nicholas Galitzine). He really is a pretty standard and plain protagonist if I can be honest, not helped by how the film's terrible style of humour means he comes off as more of an awkward buffoon than the badass hero he's supposed to be. One critique I've seen of this movie is that Prince Adam and He-Man feel like the same character, when they shouldn't be. He-Man's supposed to be a more confident, bold and courageous character compared to Prince Adam, but here the two are pretty interchangeable. For any hero who has an alter-ego, their alter-ego should feel like a separate character from their true identity, otherwise why have an alter-ego in the first place? It'd be like writing a Batman movie and making it so Bruce Wayne and Batman have the exact same personality in and out of the costume, it just doesn't make sense to me. Thankfully, Prince Adam does get some moments to kick ass when he becomes He-Man and he really shows how powerful he is in this form, but that doesn't make up for what a boring protagonist he is here and how they made him the same character both as Prince Adam and He-Man.

For the supporting cast, we have Teela (played by Camila Mendes), Duncan/Man-At-Arms (played by Idris Elba), Cringer (voiced by Tom Wilton) and Roboto (voiced by Kirsten Wiig). Teela is a generic Action Girl who is another example of how Hollywood mistakenly believes that "strong female character" equals having little-to-no personality and constantly looking better than everyone else, Cringer is surprisingly barely in the movie and we don't see him in his iconic battle armour until the very end and Roboto is a powerful machine who actually gets some of the few funny lines in the movie. Man-At-Arms is the only one of the bunch who gets any semblance of development while the rest are just one-dimensional and have nothing else going for them. Even then, it's not that compelling and it feels like they made Man-At-Arms descend into a drunken imbecile just so Teela can look better by comparison. I'm willing to bet he's way more dignified and cool than he is here, cause this movie didn't paint a great impression of the guy for me.

But if there is a character this movie gave a great impression of for me, it's Skeletor (played by Jared Leto). He was easily the best character in the movie for me due to being menacing and scary with his frightening skull face and powerful magic, while also commanding a legion of various creatures to do his bidding. Unfortunately, the movie lets him down a bit by giving him some bad gags, but he does also get some good ones every now and then. Add in Jared Leto giving one hell of a performance to the point you never see the actor playing him, you just see Skeletor, and it's no wonder that he was the best thing about the film for me. Just a pity he went down so anti-climactically in the end.

There's also his right-hand woman, Evil-Lyn (played by Alison Brie). She is the textbook example of a loyal toady. Honestly, she could give Sir Hiss from Disney's Robin Hood in being a suck-up. XD She's always kissing Skeletor's ass and patting him on the back no matter what and despite Skeletor being abusive towards her, she's still loyal to him regardless. That makes her weirdly fascinating to me and I'd love to know more about this character. Why is she so loyal to Skeletor despite his abusive behaviour towards her? I wish the movie could've delved into that, but given this film was written as if it was an MCU movie, we don't. After all, who needs character development and interesting backstories when you can have more stupid jokes that aren't funny? (sarcasm)

And that's about it. We do get other appearances from He-Man characters such as Ram-Man, Mekaneck and more, but they don't do a whole lot and the less said about the characters in the human world, the better.

With the exception of Skeletor and Evil-Lyn, this movie doesn't give me a good impression of these characters. I bet they're far more interesting or done more justice in other media than they are here...

Section 3: The Cinematography

Travis Knight may be known for his work at Laika and working with animation, but Bumblebee proved that he can also direct live-action movies and make them look amazing with Bumblebee by far being the best looking live-action Transformers film we've had to date, mainly because you can actually see what's going on and the Transformers aren't too over-detailed. This movie is no exception. If any aspect of the film does He-Man the most justice, it's unquestionably the visuals.

As I brought up earlier, the characters and the setting are all faithful live-action recreations of what we know from previous incarnations of He-Man. The characters look like who they're supposed to be with He-Man and Skeletor especially being VERY faithfully depicted here. He-Man is present in his iconic outfit and the Sword of Power also looks very accurate to the source material, specifically how it appeared in the 80's show. The fact they got a muscular actor to portray He-Man also helps sell the illusion that this is the famous hero here on the big screen in all his glory. Skeletor's depiction is especially a feat of filmmaking for me, because he not only looks spot on to the character's usual appearance, but he looks very convincing whenever we see him. While I imagine they used CGI for his skull face, it still looks real and doesn't look out of place with the rest of Skeletor's body. It also helps that Jared Leto gives a strong performance that makes it more believable that he really is playable as Skeletor and was so committed to the part that he even practiced saying his lines without moving his lips to further sell the illusion that this guy really does have a skull for a face. The glowing red eyes in the skull's eye sockets especially looked awesome and made Skeletor look even more menacing. Some characters like Cringer and Roboto and some of Skeletor's minions do look pretty obvious as CGI characters, but not overly so, and give the world that Masters of the Universe is set in, they don't look out of place.

Speaking of, Eternia itself looks pretty cool onscreen as this huge fantasy world that has some sci-fi elements to it. I love how they made Castle Grayskull look here too with the castle looking pretty accurate to images I've seen of it in other medias. I also thought the forest that our heroes end up in at one point looked quite beautiful to be in. As is, this could be me once again being baffled due to my lack of familiarity with He-Man, but is the world of Eternia always this weird hodge-podge of fantasy and sci-fi? I mean we have stuff like sorcerers, demons, various kinds of creatures such a green tiger and all that, but then we have robots and flying ships and you also have characters who use guns despite this being a fantasy world with swords and staffs and all kinds of handheld weapons. If this is what the world of He-Man is usually like, then I don't get it. Why do robots, flying ships and guns exist in the same kind of world that sorcerers and magic do? It's so weird and out of place to me. It's not like Nimona where they believably managed to portray a medieval world with a sci-fi twist and make it convincing, this just feels like two random genres mashed together with no rhyme or reason. If the world of He-Man is like this, then kudos to the movie for staying true to the source material, but no kudos for not making these elements feel like they blend together seamlessly is what I'm saying. Does other He-Man media managed to do it more believably? I'm genuinely curious.

And then there are the action scenes. It wouldn't be He-Man without them after all. As is, the action isn't really anything all that special. Maybe it's because of the superhero craze of the 2010's, but the action just feels very standard and not all that creative or impressive looking. It's just what you expect from a modern action movie more or less. There are some cool moments here and there though, namely how He-Man takes advantage of one of Skeletor's minions who is covered in spikes by getting another guy stuck on said spikes, or getting him impaled in the wall with his own spikes. The final battle with He-Man and Skeletor also really showed how painful and powerful He-Man's punches air with some slow-motion shots of He-Man punching Skeletor in the face to emphasize that. I was watching the movie with my brother and a friend at the time and they went "Ooooh!" as if they could feel those punches, and I don't blame them!

But the action scenes end up with one annoying thing that always bothered me about them. Namely that Skeletor and his cronies don't take advantage of the fact Adam loses the sword a couple of times. During He-Man's battle with Trap Jaw, he loses the sword and not once do any of Skeletor's minions think to pick the sword up and take it while Trap Jaw's keeping him busy! Same goes for Skeletor later on when He-Man's beating up his minions! He-Man's lost the sword again and is too pre-occupied with beating up Skeletor's goons, and Skeletor's just off to the side...not grabbing the sword and taking it while there's nothing stopping him. Why do that? It just makes the villains look stupid by not taking advantage of the situation while it's presented to them! If I were in their situation, I'd grab the sword while He-Man's kept busy fighting the enemy!

As is, the visuals are among the few saving graces this film has and if you're a He-Man fan, you may enjoy how this film brings the beloved franchise to life, and in the best way possible. Definitely a great look for He-Man, his supporting cast and his enemies...

Overall

Masters of the Universe definitely does not have the power in my eyes. The story is too paint-by-numbers to be engaging, the humour is obnoxious, the characters aren't interesting and the action is very standard action film stuff we've come to expect at this point. The only upsides it has is that it faithfully recreates the look of He-Man, Jared Leto's performance as Skeletor and how it seems to be a more faithful adaptation than the first live-action movie. If you're a fan of He-Man, then you might enjoy this more than I did. As is, this is not the kind of thing to get me into the franchise. It didn't paint a good impression of it for me and I might be better off checking out other He-Man media instead. Maybe I'll find more joy in other aspects of the franchise than I did with this film. Travis Knight can and HAS done better than this, and I'm sure his next film, the upcoming Laika Studios animated film Wildwood will be an example of that...

And that's it for this review. I hope you enjoyed it and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. Do you like Masters of the Universe? Do you not like it? Do let me know.

Join me next week as I return to the world of Pixar with Toy Story 5. See you then media fans!

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