Masters of The Universe - Movie Review

Added: 2026-06-04

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[00:01:20]How many thumbnails for Masters of the Universe reviews have these things in it? All right, whatever. So, Masters of the Universe is a live-action on-screen adaptation of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The second liveaction adaptation of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and another He-Man adventure that takes us from Eternia well to Earth and back again. This time around, we have Nicholas Gallatine playing Prince Adam. He was zapped to Earth in childhood. But unlike other stories that may have the magical land and someone was sent to Earth as a child, they don't remember where they come from, he remembers where he comes from. He remembers Man at Arms. He remembers Castle Grey Skull. He remembers Eternia. He remembers all the people that we know as toys. So, Skeletor is pretty much ruining everything like Scar and Lion King.

[00:02:05]Movie feels like it borrows a lot from other things, but even those other things this reminded me of borrowed from other things. Just kind of tale as old as time stuff. The long-lost chosen one, the evil douchebag that's ruling the land, ruining everything. He gets brought back to Eternia with his power sword. Hopefully they can take down Skeletor, but as we the fans know, hopefully he can realize that he is He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe. And I won't lie, when this movie kicked off, we were in Eternia.

[00:02:31]It's kind of setting up where He-Man comes from or Adam. I was kind of hooked. I was like, "Okay, this movie is doing a good job establishing the magical land, that which needs to be saved. Big evil Skeletor and all right, let's get back and save everyone." It was a solid introduction to the world. I used to watch the He-Man cartoon back in the day. We're talking the 80s one. I am that old. Yes. I also watched the Dolph London movie. Is it part of my VHS collection? That might be pushing it. Or maybe not. Don't know what kind of flex that is. It's a weird flex. Then we get to Earth and things, you know, slow down. Yeah, everyone loves a good improv comedy hour, but in the case of He-Man, let's get back to it, please. Then we get back to Eternia in which the comedy hour doesn't exactly stop. But we're back in Eternia. Hopefully, we're on our good adventure. Nicholas Gallatine leading as He-Man. I thought he was solid. Though, it's funny when he's Prince Adam. They try to layer him up with shirts to make him look like he doesn't have muscles. When he becomes He-Man is supposed to be like, "Whoa, where'd he get that physique?" But you could tell he well he had it under the shirts. But again, they're not going to film the Prince Adam scenes and be like, "All right, we're taking a huge break from filming while you get your pump on." I thought it was solid. Idris Elba's Man-at-Arms is I mean, that's a lock. Cuz at first, you know, in the beginning when you're in Eternia, Man-at-Arms is giving some tough life lessons to Prince Adam when he's this little kid. He's like, you get knocked down, you get up again. They're never going to keep you down. Piss in the NIGHT AWAY. YOU ARE CANCELLING THE APOCALYPSE. I DON'T find anything fundamentally that he's teaching here wrong. In fact, he could be my kid's gym teacher. I don't have a kid, but if I did, they do a thing with man-at-arms in here. I don't want to spoil it, but it does feel like, well, I guess it's easy to teach those lessons. It's not that you're really following him right now.

[00:04:12]Granted, it does lend itself to at least one heartfelt conversation between He-Man and him in which, you know, He-Man can kind of help pick him back up. It leads to tension between him and Tila that never really gets resolved.

[00:04:25]The movie tells you it's resolved, but it doesn't actually get resolved beyond the capacity of the script said so. It's such a non-point in the movie, I can talk about it here and feel like I'm not spoiling it for you because it's not actually in the movie. You know what else isn't in this movie? Haley's Comet.

[00:04:39]Spoiler. Not going to bury the lead though. Standout performance and character in Masters of the Universe.

[00:04:45]Jared Leto's Skeletor. Why Jared Leto? I thought they were going to do the whole Kelldor thing and and he's human and you could see he's Jared Leto and he turns into a skeleton. No, he's Skeletor the entire time. Even seeing the trailer, hearing his Bane Gandalf voice, Bane Dolph, I guess I'll call him. But >> you're too scared to use it.

[00:05:03]>> I was like, we'll see. I thought he was kind of great in this movie. In a world where this movie has a lot of comedy with Skeletor, he made it work better than anywhere else in the film. There's a lot of sexual innuendo in this movie.

[00:05:16]Also, I was like, "Okay, so this isn't exactly for people to get their kids into He-Man." Couple in particular involving Skeletor, I was like, "This might be Jared Leto ad living." But all in all, with Jared Leto Skeletor, Skeletor in the 80s animation anyway, he's, you know, he's cheesy. He's tongue-in-cheek. Now, '8s cheese doesn't always give current cheese a pass because 80s cheese isn't always it wasn't always intended to be cheese.

[00:05:40]That was the 80s actually trying. Just turns out it's modern-day hindsight cheese. But I thought for the most part Jared Leto is Skeletor. He leaned into the villain twirly mustache vibe enough.

[00:05:51]Well, if he had a mustache, he was the most fun happening on screen at any given time. Allison Bri is evil in I did not buy. I think it would have benefited Skeletor and the vibe of the movie as a whole to have Skeletor's right hand be less comedic or, you know, at the very least give her an actual character. She doesn't feel like a character. There were a couple moments where it looks like she gives a side eye and might have her own ulterior motive going on.

[00:06:14]Doesn't really go anywhere with it, so she's just, you know, there to make jokes. The CGI is what you've come to expect from a movie, a big budget sci-fi movie these days. Feel like there was a time a He-Man movie would have looked more realistic if it was released in theaters. But year after year of subpar CGI, Hollywood's just like, "Hey, keep doing that. It's cheaper for us." And eventually they'll just adapt. This will be the new normal. People are very adaptable. We adapt to rising inflation and quality dip in CGI. But sometimes the CGI looks solid. Sometimes it looks more like a cartoon than I'd like. Eternia itself does look like a very colorful and magical land and sometimes it's really big with green screen. Other times it's a much smaller sound stage like Skeletor's throne room. I was like that's it? I mean just expected a little more. That's all. You are Skeletor after all. Frank Langella would never. That's my point. Granted that was in Grey Skull but still. But yeah, this movie does have that we'll call it Thor Ragnarok energy. It feels more comedic than Thor Ragnarok, but it's not Thor Love and Thunder. I mean, I gotta make that at least clear. But I felt Thor Ragnarok had comedy that landed more consistently than Masters of the Universe had. There are quite a few scenes where I was like, not only does that not land for me, it's going on for a bit too long here. And to be fair to the other side of it, there were other jokes in this movie that absolutely landed. It got a laugh out of me. It's a real bummer when you have these moments of heart in this movie and they're absolutely here, but it gets compromised by a joke or a comedic moment or a scene that could be a badass moment. That could have been a badass walk if they didn't, you know, go for the joke. It could have just been, yeah, the heroes are making their march to take down the bad guys. Or we can just go for a cheap laugh, compromise the moment entirely. That stuff wears on me.

[00:08:09]But the thing I felt, this might be the best part of the movie. Actually, I Skeletor might be number two. The musical score in the film, fantastic.

[00:08:17]It's scored by Daniel Peton, but they have Brian May from Queen doing the electric guitar, which you absolutely hear. I mean, I'm not going to front. I didn't know it was Brian May, but that electric guitar stood out to the point where I was like, this captures the8s sci-fi fantasy vibe more than anything else I've seen that's tried to recapture it. And it's because of the music. Music is that important in capturing a vibe.

[00:08:41]some sci-fi fantasy '8s synth and electric guitar. It was a win. And the movie's a bit too long. It's 2 hours 12 minutes. Feel like you could have shaved off some of the Earth stuff. Maybe not have Man- at Arms be a drunk burnout that needs to be brought back up. Or maybe you could have shaved down some of the comedic moments that awkwardly didn't hit and went nowhere. In the end, Masters of the Universe, the 2026 movie.

[00:09:03]It's enjoyable. It's also messy. It makes a little more sense in looking into who wrote the movie. Looking into who wrote this movie, it ranges from three people to more than that. And you kind of feel it. It does feel like a few different movies crushed into one. A few different ideas of what a Masters of the Universe movie should or would be. And most importantly, it had these moments of heart and life lessons that I actually liked that didn't always land because sometimes the comedy is just there to eclipse it. Half of anything is prep, including mindset. Mindset prep for film. That's my one job here to let you know what you should be getting into mental gear for. You're going into a movie for Masters of the Universe. Go into this looking for a Masters of the Universe comedy. You do that, feel like you'd be pretty well prepped. Not Masters of the Universe with comedy in it, but an outright Masters of the Universe comedy. The only thing missing here from other movies that decide to go allin on the comedy adaptation version is this movie doesn't have Jack Black in it. Has some fun. Probably been more fun if you're drunk.

[00:10:05]Now, we've all felt that way after a couple. All right, so Masters of the Universe. Have you seen it? What did you think about it? Or what's your favorite He-Man story, animation, movie, whatever? I watched the 80s one as a kid, but I actually really liked the 2000's animation. This one right here, shockingly enjoyable. In fact, in that X-Men 97 kind of way, if they want to make a new season of that version of He-Man with Hordach, I'd totally be cool with it. You know, just throwing ideas out there into the universe. Whatever it is, whatever you think, comment below, let me know. And as always, if you like what you've seen here and you want to see more, click right here to see more.