It’s kind of insane that in the year of our lord, two thousand and twenty-six, there is a $200 million-dollar tentpole adaptation of a forty-four-year-old children’s cartoon that is expressly aimed at those of us who grew up in the last wave of Gen X cynicism. And yet, what Travis Knight has created in the new Masters of the Universe somehow manages to be both reverent and irreverent at the same time in a way that manages to slyly awaken and sate the eternal child in all of us.
Drafting off a couple of well-received modern incarnations for Netflix over the last decade, Knight’s vision for the world of He-Man eschews a lot of those versions’ earnestness in favor of the original’s focus on fantasy and (at the time unintentional) camp. The result is a rousing hero’s journey tale that is just as comfortable with the audience laughing with it as it is with the audience laughing at it, and that’s a tough mix to master.
This film finds Adam/He-Man (Nicholas Galitzine), the Prince of Eternia, in exile on Earth following a violent coup which landed his home planet in the sinister clutches of Skeletor (Jared Leto), an obscenely vascular evil wizard. The only thing between Skeletor and complete domination of the universe is the sword of power, a weapon infused with the ability to imbue he who wields it (and it will always be a “he”) with the power of a god. Ideally, this will be someone with good intentions, but the road to hell, yada yada yada…
When Adam finally returns to Eternia – thanks to a daring rescue from his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes) – he finds that all of his childhood heroes are now underground freedom fighters, and it’s up to him to take back his father’s kingdom with the help of a ragtag crew who have very little respect for this nobody who has dropped into the middle of a resistance in blue jeans and a salmon colored button-up. Nonsensical fantasy action commences.
This is not the first time Masters of the Universe has been adapted to the big screen. Back in 1987, Cannon recruited Dolph Lundgren to portray He-Man in a ridiculous bastardization of the property that retained very little from the source material. It famously bombed, though I’d wager that many of us who were obsessed with He-Man at the time have a soft spot for it. Where that film decided that the only aspect of the cartoon worth respecting were the giant muscles – and Lundgren provided those in spades – Knight’s version sticks as close to the original 1983 cartoon series as is humanly possible, including every bit of unintentional double-entendre and blatant silliness that entails.
After a bit of clumsy exposition designed to bring the uninitiated into the fold, Masters of the Universe delivers hit after hit of nostalgia for fans of the original property. The screenplay from Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, and David Callaham leans into the obvious absurdity of this galactic sword and sandal story, painting a picture of an Eternia with a distinctly Earthbound sense of humor and drama.
Fans who have had over four decades to ruminate on what a Masters of the Universe film could be will likely find themselves satisfied that the film not only understands what has lingered in their thoughts all these years – giant silly men with ridiculous muscles and even more ridiculous names – but also understands that it’s okay to laugh at the things we took so seriously as kids. One of He-Man’s compatriots is called Fisto, you know, because he fists. I mean, come on.
With a supporting cast that includes Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms, Morena Baccarin as the all-powerful Sorceress, Kristen Wiig as the voice of the aptly named Roboto, as well as Alison Brie as Skeletor’s Girl Friday, Evil-Lyn, everyone seems to fully understand the assignment. Masters of the Universe is unabashedly silly, but it also has a ton of heart and knows how to deliver action and peril in a way that keeps everyone engaged. It is both shockingly sincere and ludicrously over the top to a level that rarely works on screen, but here it really hits. Genuinely one of the most charming fantasy action spectacles in recent years, Masters of the Universe really does have the power!