Masters of the Universe – Full Review

Taking place on Earth and the mythical planet Eternia, our story follows Adam (Nicholas Galitzine), the prince of Eternia, who is forced to flee Eternia as Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his group of evil minions capture Adam’s home. Adam is forced to flee to Earth with the sword of power to keep the sword of power away from Skeletor. On his journey to Earth, Adam loses the sword of power and is forced to live on Earth with the humans until he is able to find the sword and return to Eternia.

Years pass and Adam is a grown man and still searching for the sword until one day he finds it. In touching the sword again, Adam sends out a beacon to his allies and enemies. Luckily, Adam’s old friend, Teela (Camilla Mendes), finds him and helps protect him from Skeletor’s evil minions. Teela and Adam make their way back to Eternia where Adam witnesses the wrath that Skeletor has unleashed on his home world.

With the help of Teela’s dad, Man-at-Arms (Idris Elba), and many other allies, Adam is able to unlock his powers with the sword of power and become He-Man. With his new powers and allies, Adam destroys Skeletor and his evil cabal.

Review:

I will note my bias towards this movie considering that I grew up with a He-Man action figure, so I wanted to like this movie before I even saw the first trailer. With that being said, I was not a fan of the Earth portion of this movie. Nicholas Galitzine looked out of place in the human world, with his unusual style and weird blonde hair. He also was clearly very muscular and they tried to hide it with baggy clothes that did not work. However, once Adam was in Eternia, and he became He-Man, his look was perfect for the role. The blonde hair on Nicholas Galitzine looked great and he fit the look down to a T. Although I had a lot of hesitation with Adam’s initial look, I loved the look of Eternia and a lot of the other crazy characters. Having weird, child-like names in the movie was well done explaining that they were actually just the names Adam made up for all of his Father’s soldier when he was growing up. The supporting cast was mostly fantastic. Camilla Mendes was good as Teela and was drop dead gorgeous. Idris Elba did a good job as the buttoned up captain of the guard, Man-at-Arms, but an even better job as the drunk ex-captain of the guard. His comedy throughout the movie was a welcome surprise. Jared Leto was alright as Skeletor, and someone wouldn’t know it was Jared Leto in the role if they hadn’t known before hand, which I assure you is a good thing. The biggest problem I ultimately had with the movie, and maybe it’s more of a gripe, was the casting of Allison Brie as Skeletor’s right hand woman. I typically love Allison Brie, but she did not fit this role well at all. Her dark features mixing with the platinum blonde hair was too much for me. Also, she and Jared Leto were really playing up the campiness in the movie, which I initially liked, but then it was too overdone.

Despite my criticisms, I had a lot of fun with this film at the movie theatre! It wasn’t anything spectacular, but it also wasn’t a terrible film either. I hope this movie is popular enough for a sequel, but I truly doubt there will be one considering the size of the budget and it’s overall performance at the box office. Despite that, I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone in this movie does next!

I’m giving this movie a 76/100 and giving it my seal of approval to go see while it’s in theatres!