I was looking forward to Masters Of The Universe. It looked like nostalgic fun, faithful to the source material. So I was disappointed when a couple of Outposters, as Outposter’s opinions on movies matter, said they didn’t like it too much.
But I was committed; I had promised to take the kids. The tickets were booked. So off I went to the movies with my expectations firmly in check. Maybe it was because of this but… I kinda loved it. Oh Christ. As anyone who has been hanging around on the movie internet for a long time knows, this phrase has connotations.
I cannot, in good faith, claim Masters Of The Universe cured any digestive problems, but it was tremendously entertaining. Look, I know I am going to sound like I am making excuses for it here. Maybe my views are tinted by the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia due to my age, putting me in the sweet spot for memories of the toys and the cartoon. Maybe because I wanted it to be good I glossed over some issues.
These are all probably fair assessments. Just let me put it like this. There are two ways to watch Masters Of The Universe.
The first is as a piece of cinema. The second is as a summer blockbuster movie with a bucket of Coke (the drink… although…!) and a box of popcorn the size of a Tokyo apartment. It’s bright, it’s neon, littered with fights, explosions, terrible one-liners, improbable heroes, and a cackling skull-faced villain who is worth the price of admission alone.
The answer you get will probably depend entirely on which mode you are in, and which mood you are in. You see, the remarkable thing about Masters Of The Universe is that it understands exactly what it is. More importantly, it understands what the property is.
For decades, Hollywood has looked at toy-based franchises and either treated them with outright contempt or attempted to “fix” them by sanding off everything distinctive until all that’s left is a grey slurry of generic blockbuster tropes.
Not here.
The filmmakers are too aware of the silliness of it all for me to say they are treating it with anything approaching reverence, but they do treat it as something worthy. They embrace the madness of Eternia. They lean into the absurdity of giant warriors, magic swords, and all sorts of cosmic nonsense. They don’t apologise for any of it, and they don’t expect you to either.
And that makes all the difference. Because of that, it worked for me.
The biggest surprise is how funny the film is. Not like a Marvel where Chandler Bing-like zingers can sometimes undermine emotional beats, but in a genuinely playful way. There is a spirit of fun running through the entire thing that proves infectious. The audience is clearly invited to laugh with the material rather than at it.
The running joke about Fisto being a fan of fisting, and Ram Man at one point being instructed to “Give them head!” just works because they know that you know exactly what they are doing, and they invite you to join in with the yaks. The movie also acknowledges the ease with which it could all become amusingly homoerotic just enough to earn a grin, without labouring the point in a kids’ film.
One criticism is that, perhaps, at times, it winks at itself a little too hard. Had it committed to its own ridiculousness with a completely straight face, it might have entered the exalted territory occupied by Flash Gordon (1980), a movie so gloriously sincere that it is a camp masterpiece.
Masters Of The Universe is on the way, but without the commitment to playing it absolutely straight that Flash Gordon had, it won’t quite reach the summit. Masters Of The Universe never quite hits those camp-classic heights because it remains self-aware, but you always know it is self-aware.
Weirdly, the MVP of the whole thing is Jared Leto. As Skeletor, the entire movie threatens to become his alone at several points. I have no idea what kind of direction Jared Leto was taking, or what his process was this time, but he’s laugh-out-loud funny and completely freed from the constraints of reality, dignity, or moderation.
He delivers a performance that understands exactly what a character called Skeletor should be. He sneers. He schemes. He bellows. He monologues. He evil-laughs (itself a joke in the movie). He delights in his own wickedness.
Every time he appears, the film gets a little more fun.
Visually, the movie delivers the goods. It is packed with colour, scale, and imagination. The action sequences are large, loud, and satisfyingly ridiculous. The production design frequently feels like somebody finally realised that fantasy worlds don’t have to be beige.
As for everyone else? Nobody is aiming for awards season. Everybody seems committed to just delivering an enjoyable version of these toys.
My biggest criticism is that the film is simply too long. At around twenty minutes over its ideal running time, you can feel the bloat creeping in during the middle stretch. A leaner edit would have sharpened the pacing considerably.
It’s never really boring. There’s always another creature, another joke, another absurd visual, or another Skeletor scene waiting around the corner.
There is also a lot of CG, but of course, there kinda has to be.
It’s nice to see a Beast Man that looks and behaves like the cartoon version. It’s enjoyable seeing Spikor get spiked into things when he receives a beating at the hands of the hero. Trap Jaw is well done, and the “I have the power” scenes slap considerably harder than they did in the trailer.
Speaking of slapping, Queen’s very own Brian May worked on the soundtrack alongside rockers The Darkness, giving the whole thing a 1980s guitar-powered score that was nicely different. And yes, the theme from the cartoon makes an appearance.
It seems to be struggling at the box office. This is only anecdotal, but my screening in the middle of the day on a Sunday was absolutely packed. A few random checks of other screenings in a few more theaters around me also show fairly full auditoriums. So I am not altogether sure what is going on there. There were a lot of people ready to come in for the next screening too.
The movie does absolutely savage HR and people who work in it, which is a completely fair target, as anyone who has to exist in the corporate world will tell you. Dolph Lundgren turns up in a fun cameo.
As cinema, Masters Of The Universe may not be a masterpiece. Strike that, it is definitely not a masterpiece. It doesn’t even try to be. As summer blockbuster entertainment, it’s a blast. Big, dumb, funny, silly fun with an earnest hero and a fantastic villain.
It’s completely unashamed of its roots. In an era where so many franchises seem embarrassed by the things that made them popular in the first place, that’s surprisingly refreshing. I guess that’s why it chimed with me. It feels like a long time since something set out to entertain so unpretentiously.
During a couple of scenes, I glanced over at the kids, and they were both absorbed, even with the long run time. A few times, the youngest was transfixed, staring at the screen wide-eyed and mouth open. That’s the best endorsement it can probably be given.
