Masters of the Universe is a movie that has no business being as delightful as it is. That’s partially because MOTU, as a property, has no business working as well as it always has, going back forty years. Mattel Toys originally conceived it as an action figure line to compete with Star Wars. Mattel employees Roger Sweet and Mark Taylor took 1970s-era Frank Frazetta fantasy artwork, Flash Gordon sci-fi, and the in-vogue bodybuilding mania of the Arnold Schwarzenegger era, and smashed it all together into something that obsessed kids in the ‘80s. And all of those elements have now been translated miraculously onto the big screen into something so fun, one can’t resist it.
In the beginning, MOTU barely had any lore or story, it was a concept they sold to kids on vibes. And boy oh boy, did those vibes work on a whole generation. (Well, they worked for about five years or so.) But one of those “He-Man generation” kids was me. So, director Travis Knight’s movie had the uphill battle of both being a fun, solid fantasy movie, while also delivering on recreating those vibes of yesteryear on my now adult (adultish?) brain. He absolutely succeeded in this regard. I’m here to tell you Masters of the Universe is a blast, working onscreen even when it probably shouldn’t.
RELATED ARTICLEThe Weirdest Deep Cut MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE CharactersWithout a doubt, MOTU borrows heavily from relatively recent hit movies, specifically from Marvel Studios. There’s a great deal from Thor and Thor: Ragnarok, the humor of Guardians of the Galaxy, and the “wink-wink-nudge-nudge,” self-aware camp of 1980’s Flash Gordon. And much like Flash Gordon, there’s even a Queen needle drop in this movie. All of these references are rather obvious, held together with Scotch tape and a prayer. But that’s almost exactly like how the original concept was back in the day, a mashup of different pop culture artifacts that just somehow works.Amazon MGM Studios The movie is largely faithful to the original MOTU brand, with one big exception. In the world presented in the film, the mythical planet Eternia was conquered by the evil Lord Skeletor (Jared Leto) when Prince Adam was about 10 years old. The opening sequences of the movie show how Adam was small for his age, and struggled to keep up with the other kids in his combat training. His mentor, King Randor’s Man-At-Arms, a gruff but charming Idris Elba, is stern but loving with Adam, who is best friends with Man-At-Arms’ daughter, Teela. We get a few brief glimpses of life in Eternia before Skeletor attacks, hoping to seize Castle Grayskull, the source of all power in Eternia.Amazon MGM StudiosThe key to Castle Grayskull is the Power Sword. So, Adam’s mother, Queen Marlena, rushes to Grayskull’s Sorceress (Morena Baccarin) so she can open a portal to send her son to safety, along with the Power Sword. She sends him to Earth, where she’s from (that’s canon!), but on the way to our world, Adam and the Power Sword are separated. This is a sequence very reminiscent of Thor from his first movie, where he’s banished to Earth and separated from his mystical hammer. Only Adam is stuck on Earth for 15 years, not a few days. And in Oklahoma City, no less.Now an adult played by a delightfully bumbling (yet wildly handsome) Nicholas Galatzine, Adam lives a mundane existence, working in a cubicle and living with a roommate who thinks he’s a bit nuts. He spends all of his free time looking online for the Power Sword, to the detriment of his work. This leads to a pretty funny bit with his boss, played by Agatha All Along’s Sasheer Zamata. We already knew that Travis Knight was a Gen Xer who grew up with the cartoon, but now we can also infer that he probably really loved Office Space in his 20s. There’s a lot of that movie in these scenes.Amazon MGM StudiosAdam finally finds his sword in a comic book shop, and steals it in a rather hilarious sequence, but his finding it activates Skeletor’s forces as to its location. Skeletor’s minion Beast-Man is sent to Earth to retrieve it, but Adam’s childhood friend, Teela (Camila Mendes), intercepts him, and we get the film’s first big battle, and a sweet reunion between friends. From this point on, we leave Earth behind, and the rest of the movie takes place on Eternia. This is where MOTU improves on Thor, which mostly took place on Earth and not Asgard. Travis Knight understood that no one is paying to see sword fights in Oklahoma City for 90 minutes.Adam and Teela return to a devastated Eternia, ruled by Skeletor. And although I don’t like Leto personally, he absolutely rules in this role. He doesn’t have the high-pitched voice from the cartoon, instead affecting a British accent with some digital enhancements. But his campy evil just works. We hate to make another Flash Gordon comparison, but it feels like Max Von Sydow as Ming. An Oscar-worthy talent just basking in the camp ridiculousness of it all. And Alison Brie’s Evil-Lyn brings her own level of arch kitsch to the role, playing perfectly opposite Leto’s Skeletor. Any time they are together on screen, it’s perfection.Amazon MGMAt one point, Adam asks Teela why Skeletor does what he does. This is the part of the modern blockbuster where we learn the villain’s tragic backstory. Whatever it is that led him down the path of evil. But Teela simply says “He has a skull for a face.” I couldn’t help but think this was Travis Knight saying, “Sometimes a mustache-twirling bad guy can be just that with zero explanation.” And he’s right. No kid in the ‘80s asked why Skeletor was evil, he just was. And no kid who watches MOTU today is going to ask either. Like Teela says, “Because he has a skull face.”The score by Daniel Pemberton is also absolutely fantastic. We can’t forget to mention that. It just screams the ’80s, with all the dramatic guitar riffs. And it does a lot of the heavy lifting when a particular scene is not all that great. It helps that Queen’s Brian May contributed a lot to the guitar portions, which just makes it all the better. Also, retro-influenced rock band the Darkness contributes a theme song, simply titled “Masters of the Universe,” and it’s everything you could want it to be.Is everything great in this movie? Nah. Sometimes the digital compositing is wonky, particularly in the chase scene where He-Man battles Skeletor’s Roton vehicles. The production design is great overall. But there are more than a few moments where the heavy CGI of it all is just too much. A few of the jokes are awkward and forced, and just don’t land. Or, they interrupt a genuinely emotional beat with an ok joke that feels out of place. James Gunn was much better at nailing this kind of tone. But these flaws don’t drag the movie down in a significant way. It’s just too fun and colorful to let the negatives bring down a movie that’s such a pure good time.Amazon MGM Studios A lot of the general consensus is MOTU feels like a true ‘80s movie, in the best possible way. But what’s great about MOTU is that it feels not like the ‘80s movies everyone names first. For every Conan the Barbarian, there was a Beastmaster. A slightly more off-brand version, one that nevertheless won us over with its less ambitious charm and energy. And sometimes, those movies were more fun than the bigger films whose coattails they rode. In a similar fashion, MOTU is sometimes more enjoyable than the arguably more polished MCU movies it riffs on. Oh, and like all those MCU movies, you definitely want to stay for the post-credits scenes. Masters of the Universe had everything going against it, but we have a feeling that pound for pound, it’ll wind up as the sci-fi fantasy favorite of the summer of 2026.Amazon MGM Studios ⭐ (Youtube Video)
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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