I don’t know a lot about the Masters of the Universe mythos. I watched some of the rebooted series. I have seen an episode or two of the 80s cartoon. I think that’s about it, really.
But I do know that when the movie starts with 4 Non Blondes singing “What’s Going On?” while Prince Adam is stuck in a London traffic jam, the Queen “Princes of the Universe” song (theme to Highlander) plays just when two cops make a Highlander reference, and in the end, when all the good guys are leaning their heads back, bellies out, and laughing loudly, that the movie makers thought that people who were terminally online were definitely going to be getting the jokes.
The movie opens in Eternia. Prince Adam is a runtish 10 years old and is being bullied by pretty much every kid in Duncan, Master of Arms’ training class. Duncan (Idris Elba, trying for an American accent), seems to think arms training = handing a kid a stick and sending them into a general melee. Adam does poorly and disappoints his father, the king, but luck smiles on him when Skeletor’s troops suddenly attack, saving him from further humiliation at being hit by sticks.
To save Prince Adam, his royal parents bring him to the sorceress (Morena Baccarin) who guards the legendary Sword of Power. The queen, who happens to come from Earth, begs the sorceress to send Adam and the sword to her parents in England “Oklahoma City” to be raised in safety until he is ready to once again life the Sword of Power and return to Eternia.
Unfortunately, Adam loses the sword in the portal. Cut to him in elementary school, showing off his drawings of Ram Man and Fisto and Mekaneck to the laughter of his schoolmates.
Cut to Adam as a FUGGING HUGE MUSCULAR GUY working a dead end job in the HR department of some nameless firm, the kind of firm where your name tag contains your pronouns and your boss is being friendly, kind, considerate and so chirpy that Adam doesn’t realize he is being fired for spending all his work time searching for the Sword of Power on the Internet.
While in the midst of being terminated, he gets a text from someone that says he has found the sword! Leaves immediately, gets into his Euro car and rushes through the clearly European city’s narrow cobblestone streets. I am floored that the producers expected us to buy that this was Oklahoma.
The sword is being held by a plaster barbarian in a comic book shop. Adam manages to wrestle it out the plaster mannequin’s grip, and does the “BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL” line, but… nothing happens. So he makes a break for it back to his apartment.
At some point he stops by a gym to lift weights, and I have to emphasize that the actor who plays adult Adam is big. He spent months bulking up for this. But we’re meant to believe he finds 5kg weights too much for him. Luckily Dolph Lundgren, who played He-Man in the previous live action movie, is there to give him some pointers.
I guess in the cartoon, Prince Adam in non-He Man mode is also absurdly muscled, and still acts weak and cowardly for whatever reason, so I guess this is just the character. Except I think in the cartoon, Adam is faking being scared so he can run off and become He Man. This is a running joke in the movie as well.
Back at his apartment, he’s awoken by cops who want to talk to him about a sword he stole. This is where he ends up in the traffic jam. A beast guy (I think his name is literally Beast Man) comes looking for Adam and the sword, but luckily he is whisked away by Duncan’s daughter, who brings him to Canada Square (in London, with cars clearly driving on the left) where she has parked her space ship, and off they go back to Eternia.
Adam is thrilled when he arrives, but seeing all the old warriors from his childhood, he realizes he doesn’t know their real names. He just made up names for them. Fisto, Ram Man, etc. They get insulted, but there’s at least a 50% chance they can’t even remember their actual names — by the end, they’re calling each other by those names.
So anyway, then the rest of the movie happens.
Jared Leto plays Skeletor in a largely practical costume, with the skull face remapped in CGI. I liked him! I thought he was fine. Community’s Alison Brie played Evil-Lyn and was hilarious whenever she was on screen.
The sets were fairly cheap looking, like old Power Rangers, but I appreciated that they were actually in a real room with real stuff. I thought it fit the movie well. All the sets had CGI exteriors, but the stuff in the room with the actors felt very retro.
The film does not take itself seriously. Honestly, it could have been a touch less smirky. And I am not sure how to take the whole subtext of “talking things out is useless, only by punching can we win against our enemies!”. Adam keeps on trying to deescalate things with conversation, and his enemies just laugh. Skeletor comes right out and says, I’m evil! Trying to talk me into being good is just going to waste both our times!
So in the end, Prince Adam as He Man punches Skeletor until he’s dead. More dead. Dead-er. Until just his skull is left for Evil-Lyn to collect and hurry away with.
Time passes, everyone is happy, an alert comes saying a far district is in danger. Prince Adam hurries away on some errand. Everyone says, he knows we know he’s He Man, right? Did he think we’d forgotten?
So, rating. Well, the movie isn’t making me run out and buy toys, so it failed in its main mission, I guess. I loved the sets and the costumes. I loved trying to figure out where the movie was actually shot, as opposed to anyplace in the US. And I wonder what a serious telling of the story would have been like. The cartoon was cheesy; so was this movie. Maybe that’s what everyone wanted.
Rita Repulsa would have fit right in.
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