After Skeletor, played by Frank Langella, broke the fourth wall, declaring “I’ll be back!” after emerging from the liquid at the bottom pit in the 1987 live-action version of Masters of the Universe, well, his plan got stuck in development hell. It lasted not only a few years, but almost four decades before we finally got a reboot. One that is blessed with a bigger budget than the bargain-priced 1987 version funded by the notoriously thrifty Cannon Films back in the day.
So, going back to Skeletor, only this time he’s played by Jared Leto, his evil plan to conquer Eternia, the home planet of Prince Adam/He-Man (Nicholas Galitzine), succeeds right from the start during the opening prologue. It certainly echoes the similar high-stakes opening of the 1987 version, even though Travis Knight’s redo spends some time investing in the introduction of Adam when he is just a child (Artie Wilkinson-Hunt) learning how to fight under the guidance of Duncan a.k.a. Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba).
Knight, who is no stranger to handling a popular IP as seen in his entertainingly nostalgic Transformers spin-off, Bumblebee, delivers an assured direction during the prologue, detailing how little Adam is still a playful child who has yet to realize his true potential before everything falls apart when Skeletor and his minions invade Eternia. I can’t help but notice that the prologue follows the Superman origin template, but only to a certain extent; notably, Adam is safely sent away to Earth with the Sword of Power, an all-important magical blade that serves as a signal for returning to Eternia someday.
Of course, things don’t go as planned as the Sword of Power somehow separates from Adam during his journey to Earth. We learn that Adam has since spent the last 15 years living in Oklahoma City with his roommate, Hussein (Christian Vunipola), and working a stagnant desk job in the human resources department. He cares more about locating his missing sword through internet search and online forums than doing what most people would do.
Knight doesn’t repeat the same mistake of setting his story predominantly earthbound like the 1987 version, despite the latter not having much of a choice for doing so due to budgetary constraints. In other words, it doesn’t take long before Adam finally finds his sword, and trouble arrives, leading to a subsequent action-packed stretch in a flyover after one of Skeletor’s top right-hand men, Beast Man (voiced by Gary Martin), attempts to snatch the sword from Adam. Long story short, Adam’s childhood friend, Teela (Camila Mendes), shows up just in time to save him, and together, they travel back to Eternia on a spaceship.
Now, by returning to Eternia, one would expect it to be an epic hero’s journey, where Adam would embrace his destiny as both warrior and savior to defeat Skeletor and his minions, especially after he wields the sword. This is where the movie starts to test my patience. Growing up watching the ‘80s animated series, I’m aware of its generally campy tone, and I’m glad Knight embraces it as such in his live-action reboot. For a while there, the self-aware humor works, and Galitzine’s game performance as a fish-out-of-water character mixes with the kind of comical energy seen in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and Taika Waititi’s Thor movies.
But here lies the problem: Knight, who directed a screenplay written by Chris Butler, the Nee brothers (Aaron and Adam), and David Callaham, made an ill-advised choice by going overboard with the whole jokey affair. To the point that even after Adam has the power and morphs into a muscular warrior dressed in a leather loincloth, he doesn’t come across as heroic as he should be. He looks more like a nerd cosplaying a He-Man look, which in turn dilutes the supposedly escalating stakes once he starts battling against Skeletor and his minions.
The second act gets clunky as the story progresses, making the bloated 141-minute running time feel like it desperately needs some tightening to flush out some of the excesses. The movie barely recovers, save for the supporting cast, with credits particularly going to both Leto and Alison Brie’s knowingly scenery-chewing respective portrayals as Skeletor and Evil-Lyn, Mendes’s feisty turn as Teela and Elba’s no-nonsense Duncan/Man-At-Arms, with the frequent stop-start momentum that grows increasingly unfunny, while the attempt on the emotional beats in some scenes fails to hit the right note.
Then comes the third act — an inevitable showdown between He-Man and Skeletor that, instead of a battle worth waiting for, turns out to be strangely anticlimactic. Masters of the Universe ends with a mid-credits stinger because why not, since there are more stories to tell. But judging from what I saw in this reboot, it’s more of a missed opportunity than a potential franchise starter.
