Directed By Travis Knight

Starring – Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba

The Plot – In the furthest regions of space the kingdom of Eternia is threatened by the villainous Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his mischievous armies of darkness. To save his fathers kingdom and protect the lives of those he holds dear young Prince Adam (Galitzine) has to retrieve a mythical sword and become the fabled warrior only known as “He-Man”.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence/action, some suggestive material, and adult language.

Masters of The Universe – Official Trailer

POSITIVES

Having never seen a single episode of any incarnation of the animated television series, or even an individual scene of the 1987 live action Dolph Lundgren movie, Knight’s film offered an advantageously rare opportunity that presented itself in the lack of preconceived expectations in an iconic intellectual property, and while Masters of the Universe undeniably has compromising issues that occasionally squander the nobility of its intentions, it’s still an entertaining and applicably mastered experience that should satisfy the curiosity of its built-in fandom. For starters, what Knight has capably conjured here in the consistency of his direction not only carries with it an impeccable eye for detail that brings the fantastical elements of this world to life seamlessly in the depths of its practicality for production design and wardrobe, but also the Saturday morning sensibilities of cartooned imagination that is executed breathlessly throughout some fanatically fun and urgently executed actions sequences, where the durability of its supernatural characters far exceeds those of everyday human capability. On the former, despite some occasionally lifeless C.G backdrops and creature designs that threaten to squander the appeal of the expansive world-building taking shape, the gothic designs and colorfully radiant presentation, brings Eternia to life, in majestically captivating ways that make us want to spend every minute of the film’s 127-minute runtime in this magical world of exotic creatures and off-the-wall personalities, and the latter, while failing to execute any kind of technique that allows the imagery to stimulate substantially towards standing out, does effectively brandish maintained energy and anticipatory resolution, in ways that underline Knight’s direction with exclamative impact to the stakes and circumstances assembled from its dangerously powerful characters, with very little in the way of textural believability towards the devastation that is surmised in a grand scope and stunning scale. On top of this, the many cooks in the handed down outline of this finished script certainly appraises that dejected consistency of individual pieces from better movies surmising to make a Frankenstein of a finished product, but even in their flaws, the one important decision that it makes is to spend an overwhelming majority of its time fleshing out and persisting from within Eternia, allowing the production to realize the extensive ambition of a Masters of the Universe project, where this origin story of sorts persists already thoroughly establishing Adam’s capabilities and destiny in overtaking the throne for power. Aside from reveling in the remorselessness of its nostalgic nourishment, inserting an abundance of Easter Eggs along the way, the film undeniably crafts a narrative journey pertaining to heroic destiny, inner strength, and the conflict between empathy and brute force, which taps into a compelling sensitivity towards its protagonist and surrounding characters, and considering the material meets it halfway by not only making this a story about Adam’s vengeance, but also one with the focus on its citizens in tow, there’s ample deviation in the structural versatility of its executed storytelling that seemingly feels like it values each of the characters equally, making this certainly feel like an ensemble piece of sorts, even with Nicholas Galitzine’s breakthrough turn as Adam taking center stage. Galitzine’s awkwardly vulnerable portrayal admittedly took more time to feel conditioned to than most superpower protagonists, with his bumbling gawkiness initially reflecting his time spent on Earth and away from his homeland, but once he transforms into the suit, near the movie’s halfway point, the physical dedication to specimen, and confidently exuded persistence makes him feel like a completely different person in the duality of his articulated approach, but one that Galitzine refuses to take for granted in bearing a striking resemblance to his animated counterpart, in turn cementing his biggest and most challenging performance in a young but promising career. Galitzine’s memorably dichotomous portrayal is supported by meaningful work from a stoically resilient Camila Mendes, a disappearingly devilish Jared Leto, and a charismatically supercharged turn from Idris Elba, the latter of which represents the more fascinating character study for me personally, which is casually persisting in the distance of this conflicted story. Leto’s turn is also a fascinating one, not merely just because he approaches his antagonistic role with the kind of suave sliminess and silky verbiage that weaponizes hyperbolic terminology, but also in the voice modulating that eviscerates the familiarity of his detectable tones, solidifying a committed-but-conforming performance worthy of praise, even if the aforementioned vocal smothering makes it easy to believe that anyone could’ve played this role.

NEGATIVES

While Masters of the Universe has a lot going for it in artistry and praise-worthy performances, there’s nearly just as many compromising issues to the integrity of its finished product that created many issues in remaining focused to the individuality of its appeal, particularly a hack-and-slash screenplay that so evidently resembles the superhero films that it molds itself after. If you told me this movie was the lost installment to the second phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I would undeniably believe you, as not only does the script concern itself relentlessly with the kind of aggressive humor that stands out abrasively during scenes calling for drama, but also recreated scenes such as the third act climax emulating the rainbow bridge sequence from Thor: Ragnarök, which has this film losing its originality with each passing scene. For my money, that aforementioned movie is joined by the first Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy, with the loudly jolting classic rock soundtrack reflecting that of the latter, while the many character building beats of Adam seamlessly reflecting those of Thor after he was separated from his parents and banished to Earth, in a quest to reconfirm his powers. These similarities become all the more painfully relevant the longer the film persists into its convoluted second hour, where its derivativeness has it feeling glaringly predictable before the biggest beats of the narrative even have a chance to take shape, and considering it’s balanced by the arduous pacing of an overlong two hour runtime that could certainly use more than a light shaving, it left me exhausted in my lack of desire to remain faithfully by its side, without any single scene of originality that could stand legitimately alongside those previously mentioned predecessors. As for the runtime itself, I don’t necessarily have a problem with an over two hour runtime if the juice of the attainable story warrants the squeeze of audience attention, however there are so many scenes involving heavy handed exposition that could certainly be hemmed on their way to the obvious intention, with so many stacked examples of these long-winded diatribes that have its finished product feeling like a first draft that deserves another trip or two inside of the editing room. If this isn’t enough, Masters of the Universe represents the second movie in a week to enact my least favorite cinematic pet peeve, in that it objectifies itself with the materialistic impulses of clumsy product placement, in order to perhaps inflate its budgetary opportunities. Even if just done once during our introduction to grown-up Adam, while on a date with a woman at a restaurant, the front-and-center label placement of a Coca-Cola can at eye level with the lens, is frustratingly distracting to the immersive integrity of a scene, but it pales in comparison to the second example of such, where an Amazon Prime delivery truck runs down one of the many antagonistic creatures tasked with retrieving the sword of power from Adam. For those who don’t know, Amazon Studios produced this movie, so their second chance within a year to option their brand to save the day, after last year’s War of the Worlds, is entirely unforgiveable in the most morally depraved of methods, and the single biggest reason why the studio needs to take itself out of the movie world, in order to attain some semblance of credibility that is so painfully missing from this any film serving to commercialize its already massive brand. Finally, I previously touched on some unflattering aspects with the movie’s delving into artificial, within its C.G-executed backdrops, and while the intrusiveness of a studio’s tangibility keeps so many of these scenes from attaining effortless believability with the materialized locations, it’s even more condemning to the monotony of the presentation that comes to take away the vibrancy of its luminously colorful imagery, making so many of these enticingly crucial sequences feel like they’re taking place in the dark, on account of this unappealing hue that hangs over our characters like an unidentified fog that lingers in the atmosphere.

OVERALL
Masters of the Universe is an entirely self-aware and arduously overlong nostalgic nutshell that capably balances fan service with energetic exuberance, in a seamless transfer of its Saturday morning sensibilities. While the script tries hard to humble its characters with inconsistently deprecating humor that it unfortunately can’t shake in the extent of its over two hour long outline, the dimensionality of its world-building and urgent thrills of its action sequences, help it to overcome its contradictive consistency, in turn supplanting the cinematic equivalent of smashing action figures, with only our minds to pave the narrative path.

My Grade: 6.6 or C+