If I had been ten years younger at the time, I might have been a huge fan of Masters of the Universe—aka He-Man—when it first premiered on TV back in the 1980s. But I never watched the original cartoon, nor did I buy any of the action figures (and these days, I wish I had bought some, seeing how several of the original MOTU figures are now worth big bucks). Despite the silliness of its overall concept, like characters with goofy names such as Lock Jaw, Ram Man, and Fisto (!!!), I still enjoyed the first live action MOTU movie, back when that was released in 1987. I thought Frank Langella (Dracula; Those Lips, Those Eyes) gave a great performance as Skeletor, the evil villain of the MOTU fantasy world known as Eternia. I tried to watch the Netflix animated series of MOTU, produced by Kevin Smith (Clerks), but I just couldn’t get into that version at all and so I tapped out midway through. After the Netflix version, it looked like that was finally the end for MOTU—but Mattel, the owner of the MOTU property, wasn’t about to give up just yet.
2026 saw the release of a second live-action Masters of the Universe film, this time directed by Travis Knight, who also helmed the magnificent Kubo and the Two Strings, and Bumblebee—the latter being the only Transformers film that I really enjoyed. And, having seen the new film, I think Knight was a very good choice to direct it, because he imbues the MOTU universe with the same grounded sensibilities that he did with his recent films. For example, after Prince Adam (played as a child by Artie Wilkinson-Hunt; played as an adult by Nicholas Galitzine) is exiled from Eternia as a boy, he lives out his days on Earth, keeping his memories alive by drawing all of the family and friends. All of these silly names for the secondary characters, even Fisto, were made up by young Adam—this leads to a hysterically funny scene when the adult Adam, back in Eternia, keeps referring to these warriors by his childhood names for them, which creates some qualms, especially with the guy he keeps innocently calling Fisto.
The new MOTU has a great sense of humor because of this. But Knight still wisely doesn’t let the humor get too far out of hand. When the adult Adam returns to Eternia, it’s to help a struggling resistance movement fight Skeletor, who has seized control of all its enchanted lands. The new Skeletor is well played by Jared Leto—the method actor whom everybody loves to hate—in a CGI-image created performance. Skeletor is a genuinely intimidating presence here, complete with some major dictator insecurities, all of which is observed with eye-rolling aplomb by Alison Brie (Netflix’s GLOW), who plays Evil-Lyn, Skeletor’s sorceress sidekick. Brie does a good job of making the most of her small role. The cast is pretty well stacked with some good actors, with the always good Idris Elba (Luther) as Master At Arms, Morena Baccarin (Firefly, Deadpool) as the good Sorceress, and Camila Mendes (Riverdale), who’s charming as Teela, Adam’s potential love interest.
Knight makes perfect use of all the creatures and gadgets from the MOTU universe, which keeps his film visually stunning, with plenty of eye candy. And the humor and action is pretty well balanced, avoiding the mistakes of Thor: Ragnarok, and Thor: Love And Thunder, both of which tipped over too much into broad comedy, and as a result just made its main character look stupid. While the new MOTU is campy, it’s still a lot of fun, reminding me of the 1980 Flash Gordon film in a good way (especially in the MOTU post credit scene). I was sorry to hear that this film bombed at the box office, because there was a teaser at the end for She-Ra: Princess of Power, a companion animated TV show that featured the twin sister of He-Man. I just wanted to see what Knight’s take was going to be on this character, but as it stands now, I’m looking forward to whatever film Travis Knight does next. --SF
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