In the 1980’s thanks to deregulation, children’s programming was no longer required to have the same educational value it once did, opening the door for toy companies to produce shows that were essentially 25 minute commercials for their products. This birthed He-Man, a toy line designed to appeal to young boys the way Barbie did for girls. It was a product concept that Mattel hired talented artists and writers to reverse engineer a story for and bring to life. However despite its crass commercial origins, the fantastical Conan-adjacent line of toys resonated with little boys of the time and has lived on in various forms and attempted reboots throughout the years since. The Masters of The Universe movie is the largest and most ambitious attempt to relaunch and reposition He-Man front and center in mainstream pop culture.
The movie finds prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) – who can transform into He-Man when reciting the magic words “By the Power of Grayskull! I have the power!” while holding the mystical sword of power – living in exile in our world in current times working as part of a Human Resources department at a large corporation, but he longs to return to Eternia and is obsessed with finding his lost sword. When he eventually does find the sword of power and recites the magic words he doesn’t turn into a muscle bound hero and instead draws the attention of Skeletor (Jared Leto), the evil ruler of Eternia who has also been looking for the sword and sent his henchman Beastman to our world to retrieve it. Luckily for the helpless Adam, he is rescued by his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes) who has grown up to be a great warrior. She transports Adam and the sword of power back to Eternia to fulfill his destiny: defeat Skeletor and save Eternia.
Masters of The Universe is an admirable, but ultimately frustrating attempt at adapting the series. It’s somewhat unclear in the current pop culture landscape what audience a He-Man movie is for, other than middle aged men like myself who grew up on it as kids. It is very much a product of its time and doesn’t exactly jibe with modern sensibilities. The film struggles with that challenge and makes the puzzling choice of constantly reminding the audience how uncomfortable it is with the character’s goofy names (He-Man, Ram Man, Fisto) and feels the need to regularly point out how silly they are. In addition, the choice to also set part of the movie in our world to try and bridge the gap and update some elements of the story and lore only adds to the film’s excessive 2 hours and 20 minute run time, making it feel bloated and poorly paced.
The creative missteps are truly disappointing because the things the movie gets right are very well done. It does an excellent job capturing the look of the fantastical art design of the toy line that helped make it so successful and bringing the world of Eternia to life. The vehicles and monstrous villains all look cool and the film has a vibrant and colorful aesthetic. The casting is superb. Galitzine shines as both Prince Adam & He-Man, Idris Elba is well cast as Duncan, Adam’s former mentor and Man-at-Arms and Jared Leto is surprisingly wonderful as Skeletor. His portrayal of the villainous mad man as sort of Shakepearean baddie is a delight. There is even a fun cameo from another star associated with a previous version of He-Man. The spectacle of the film is enhanced by a tremendous Flash Gordon/ Highlander-flavored theme song from Daniel Pemberton & Brian May.
While it’s is not a complete misfire, Masters is a let down for director Travis Knight, who previously made the outstanding stop motion animated Kubo and The Two Strings and Bumblebee, arguably one of the best Transformers movies. It’s unfortunate that he struggled to crack the code and figure out how to update He-Man since he seemed like the perfect fit for the material. However, maybe that’s not all his fault and there just isn’t a great way to successfully adapt a 40-plus year old toy line made for little boys to the big screen for a larger audience in 2026.
About this edition:
The 4K UHD disc looks and sounds phenomenal, but is unfortunately light on special features and their inclusion feels like an afterthought.
There is a presentation of a drone light show done to promote the movie titled “Masters of Light: Skies of Eternia Drone Spectacle”, which is fine but disposable, and a behind-the scenes promotional gallery. Sadly all the clips in the gallery are rather short and don’t really give you any insight into the filmmaking or creative choices.
