The Movie: Masters of the Universe
The Director: Travis Knight
The Cast: Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Morena Baccarin,
Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Charlotte Riley, Featuring Kristen Wiig, Jared Leto, Idris Elba
The Story: A young man on Earth discovers a fabulous secret legacy as the prince of an alien planet, and must recover a magic sword and return home to protect his kingdom.
The Rating: 8 / 10
The Review:
"Hang on, it's about to get weird." - Teela
I couldn't think of a more appropriate quote to define this movie and my use of it is meant in the most complimentary way possible. Basically, this movie is a mashup of Lord of the Rings, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the 1980 Flash Gordon movie all served with a big bowl of the most sugar filled cereal you can find and a heaping pile of nostalgia. The look, the vibe, the story, and the music are all peak 1980's nostalgia and yet the whole thing manages to feel completely fresh and fun and thoroughly entertaining.
To say this movie was a pleasant surprise would be a huge understatement as I was expecting maybe a halfhearted cash grab type of experience that would be forgotten not long after leaving the theater with only department store clearance shelves leaving any evidence that it ever existed. It became very clear very quickly that the creative team, including director Travis Knight and the writing team of Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, and Adam Neem, knew exactly how to present a property that was originally targeted to immature young boys who are now adults that are probably still fairly immature. Yes, I count myself among them.
The movie is so smart in how it pokes fun at just about everything that could have gone wrong with this movie when looking at it from a more modern and culturally appropriate type of lens. Silly character names like Ram-Man and Fisto are at first made fun of and then eventually given moments of redemption that just add to their originally intended heroic nature. There's also an element of adult humor embedded throughout the movie that had me dying because it was so unexpected and I expect this to be one of the highlights that a lot of people talk about after the fact.
He-Man himself is portrayed in a completely different light than we've ever seen before and, no he's not what some would call woke, whatever that means now days, this is much more of a classic, coming of age, origin type story. At first glance, I wasn't convinced that Nicholas Galitzine, who you may recognize from the 2022 Netflix hit Purple Hearts, but it turns out he was pretty much a perfect fit to take on what had to be a challenging role to get just right within the context of them story.
I also love the fact that Skeletor is a villain through and through. There's no attempt at humanizing him or making his evil intentions understandable or relatable, he's just a really bad guy who wants to rule over everyone and keep all the power for himself. While I'm not a fan of Jared Leto, I have to say he does a fantastic job with this character, even without the benefit of seeing facial expressions as part of the performance. The over-the-top nature of how he performs both vocally and physically is absolutely spot on for who you want a villain like Skeletor to be.
One thing you'll notice right away is how the look and feel of the production is filled with lots of bold colors and striking visuals and there's a clearly defined contrast between how the earth we know looks compared to when the characters are on Eternia. This is also where I would give the strongest comparison to 80's movies like Flash Gordon in how the whole thing just feels like a cartoon coming to life in full color on the big screen.
For those looking for epic action, there are more than enough high-flying scenes and big battle sequences to satisfy movie goers and kids of all ages. Every moment is perfectly crafted for movie theater audiences to get the most bang for their buck and I really had no complaints at all about the quality of the special effects. Seriously, I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this movie and I can confidently declare that this should go down as one of the biggest surprise hits of the year.
The screening I attended was not in any sort of premium format theater although it is a big enough, blockbuster style movie that it wouldn't hurt to take advantage of IMAX or Dolby or whatever you prefer. Either way, just go see the movie. I'm sure kids will love it for all the fancy bells and whistles and folks who grew up with the toys and cartoons will get that extra dose of nostalgia on top of everything else.
Thank you for reading this review, I hope my thoughts and opinions help you make good decisions when it comes to spending your hard-earned money at your theater of choice.
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