Movie Review: Masters of the Universe (2026)

Trying to get Masters of the Universe back on the big screen was quite the adventure. The second live action film (the 1987 version with Dolph Lundgren as He-Man has earned a bit of a cult following over the years but was widely panned and tanked hard upon release) based on the popular Mattel toy line/comic series/animated series entered development all the way back in 2009 following the success of Michael Bay's Transformers movies and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. During this long period where it failed to get across the finish line, the distribution rights bounced around between a few studios (Warner Brothers, Netflix, Sony) and had a number of Hollywood vets attached to direct including Jon M. Chu, McG and Jeff Wadlow. Real forward momentum on the project finally came in November 2023 when Amazon acquired the rights from Netflix and hired Travis Knight to direct in February 2024. About a year after Knight was hired, Masters of the Universe began to roll cameras in London and last weekend, it arrived in theaters around the globe. While releasing it now when the audiences for 80's cartoon IP's have largely dried up isn't going to be good for the old profit margins, MOTU fans have to be really excited that a proper blockbuster version of He-Man and co. finally exists. 

For the people out there like me who weren't even alive when Masters of the Universe was at the peak of its popularity, the IP is a sword and sorcery/sci-fi hybrid that takes place on the fantastical planet of Eternia. At the start of this film, we're introduced to Adam Glenn (Nicholas Galitzine) as he's toiling away at a human resources job in Oklahoma City. Adam was a prince on Eternia who was sent through a portal to Earth by his parents (Charlotte Riley, James Purefoy) and a sorceress (Morena Baccarin) who protects their skull-shaped castle known as Castle Grayskull after the tyrannical Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his goons (Alison Brie, Sam C. Wilson, Kojo Attah, James Apps) take over Eternia. Right before Adam is sent to Earth, he's handed a sword known as the Sword of Destiney by the Sorceress that will allow him to travel home when the time is right. During his psychedelic wormhole travel from Eternia to Earth, the teenage Adam fumbles the Sword of Power and basically suddenly gets banished to a permanent lonely existence on a new plant. 15 years later, Adam's obsession with returning to the home that no one he's ever met on Earth believes is real pays off as The Sword of Power shows up at a comic store near his apartment. Once Adam touches the sword, Skeletor's goon Beast Man comes to take it from, and Adam's childhood best friend Teela (Camila Mendes) shows up to save the day and bring him home. After seeing the destruction of his once-gorgeous planet for the first time, Adam sets out on a journey to embrace the power within him and transform into the noble warrior that can liberate Eternia from Skeletor's wrath once and for all.

Out of the gate, Masters of the Universe had me hooked. There's a really fun Saturday Morning Cartoon aesthetic to its flashback sequences, the introduction of the Barbie-esque deconstruction of masculinity that serves as the primary subtext of this story through the King questioning young Adam's manhood after Teela thoroughly beats him in a weapons training exercise run by her father Duncan (Idris Elba) who serves as the head of the King's guard is strong and Galitzine does a really good job of portraying a purehearted guy who is really hurt by the fact that he has no place in the universe where he's truly accepted. Once the story shifts back to Eternia, the movie kind of gets away from Knight. The 52-year-old who rose to prominence in Hollywood as a stop motion animator and director wants everybody to know that he's aware Masters of the Universe is really dumb. Every time the movie does something earnestly or endearingly cheesy like drop a crazy slow motion fight scene where He-Man lays waste to a bunch of Skeletor's henchman with his sword, deliver a monologue about how Adam's real weapon is his big heart or let Leto's Skeletor chew the scenery with his cartoon villain theatricality, Knight quickly dampens the mood by having the characters express their displeasure with the ridiculousness of what just transpired on screen. 

What really amuses me about Knight acting like he's above this material is that it's a form of weakness that runs parallel to the macho bullshit the insecure alpha male characters spew at Adam when he dares to show his vulnerability. Walking around like you're being weighed down by this immense burden of shame because you like something that's viewed as uncool by people who aren't fans of the property is fucking embarrassing behavior for an adult to be engaging in. Just own that you love this corny shit man! Everybody on the planet loves some corny shit and it's not hard at all to be unapologetic about the corny shit you love! You'd think the guy who made such an earnestly sentimental movie in Bumblebee would know better, but apparently his love for the Transformers gang was much less embarrassing to him than the love he has for He-Man and co. It really sucks that Knight's insecurity over his enjoyment of an 80's cartoon property looms so large here because there's plenty of evidence present in the vibrant action and rare moments where it's unafraid to wear its big mushy heart on its sleeve that this movie would've ripped hard if it had embraced the campiness that drives MOTU instead of running from it like an image-conscious teenage boy who doesn't want to get bullied by the popular kids at school for still playing with action figures at 14. Oh well, at least Knight will soon be able to return to having pride in his work as his next serious stop motion movie Wildwood is set to hit theaters on October 23rd. 

Grade: B-