Masters of the Universe (1987)
Only the universe could hold adventure this big!
Fantasy is cool. Science Fiction is cool. Fantasy science fiction blended is cool. You don’t have to look far to realize this - look at Star Wars, with it’s space wizard samurais, or Thor with it’s high-tec Norse pantheon. Well, there was another like it way back when - one that perhaps might not be as remembered. One that came from toys, with a villain who was very blue - and a penchant for two-part naming that was pretty dumb, but what do we expect from a toy line? Tonight, we join He-Man and Skeletor and find the Masters of the Universe.
The thing about this movie - game adaptations weren’t the only thing back in the day that usually didn’t go great. See, the problem is - especially earlier on - that technology and budgets just weren’t there to really generate enough of an attempt at “faithful adaptations” that a lot of the modern type of older fandoms would want. For a kid, sure, they might still have fun watching it, and I’m not entirely sure why an adult would really care that much about He-Man and it’s story at the time, so they probably don’t care what it is as long as it’s hopefully more entertaining then whatever other kids movie they just had to sit through. For the people that actually wanted a story based on He-Man and the crew though, they may have found a large amount of frustration when a good chuck of the screen time follows two everyday earth humans on their little caught-in-the-middle story of good and evil doing battle.
Yes, that’s right, the Eternians do Earth in this movie. Now look, I’ll get it out of the way now - I like this movie. I have a lot of fun with it, even with it’s downfalls. That said, most people don’t want a movie about something set in an entirely different universe to suddenly get boring-ed up by slapping it into whatever time period of earth. Like, yeah, Star Wars would have been so much more fun as a movie if they would have spent 30 minutes of run time on Earth with humans misunderstanding Chewbacca as a Sasquatch. That said, they handle it well enough and the only reason it is what it is most probably comes down to budget - shooting on normal Earth? Not as expensive as creating a whole new world with sets and paintings and props. I’m not going to fault anyone for being upset about it - regardless of if it makes budgetary sense, it’s still a bit of a downer to get so little of the “new world” and so much of the “already live here” world. At least it does keep the core of the idea though - Skeletor wants to rule the universe and drive He-Man to his knees, He-Man wants to good guy and stop Skeletor. One has the power, one wants the power, and the power of music will take us across time and space.
Sorry somewhat generic story aside, it does have some good comedic moments and plenty of good action moments to it - it’s not just a huge boring haul. Yes, it does get some tedious character building drama and stupid moments if you are in it for flash and action - but most of the actors do a good job in keeping you entertained regardless of how dumb you feel while being so. It might be funny to hear, but of all the actors and characters in here, I think our lead hero himself is actually probably the worst acted - I mean, Dolph is a super smart guy and everything, but it was still early on in his acting career and it kind of shows. Meanwhile, our main villain is over there like some Shakespearean villain chewing out a thesaurus and philosophy essays like if you college professor was a secret James Bond villain. Even when some of his lines are lame as heck, the dude really just forces your attention to him. Our Earthlings do a fine job, line deliveries and reactions and all of that are pretty well what you’d expect them for the time - complete with head-slapping moments of “well that was stupid!”
Talk about a bone-daddy.
Every character has a bit of comedy to them as well - despite how super serious the movie can get particularly at the ending act. I don’t think there was a single person on team good that didn’t get at least one moment to be the joke giver or butt of a joke. When a baddy gets to be funny, it’s usually as the butt of a joke more so than something they said - although some may find an over-enthusiastic line delivery or two to be pretty comedic. Whether or not you find any of it funny of course is down to personal preference - humor being subjective and all - but at the very least you’ll get the levity feeling where it’s intended. Now, some characters really don’t have as much to do - especially when you compare them to the humans or the main hero and villain - and it could leave you feeling a little like there’s a lot of characters just for the sake of having characters in it - but with a toy line, that makes total sense for better or worse.
Now we move on to one of my always favorite parts of movies - the effects! Plenty of costumes here, ranging from our main’s straight out of a barbarian movie with a cape outfit to the modern day Earth attire, all the way into the space field with generic baddy fodder that looks like Storm Troopers from Star Wars with some extra knight pieces attached. Honestly, I can kind of dig the outfits and the work the costume department did here, and find myself wondering just what more they could have done with more budget. I mean, for something that felt like there was at least a little cost saving going on, you look at Skeletor - particularly his face - and it look stinking awesome man. This time around, I couldn’t help but think “shop in some glow over all the swords, remove the Earth stuff, and you could make a pretty compelling side-story for Sith versus Jedi out of this thing”. That said, specifically in regards to the original Trilogy - Masters has way better sword fights. I’ll also go out and say the look of plenty of the characters just feels right, even if they aren’t really super accurate to the toys.
All of that and I haven’t even mentioned the big old painting backgrounds. They look pretty good - I mean, I can see it for what it is, but it still looks pretty alright. Other effects - like explosions, which happen all the time - are totally acceptable, and one of the worse offenders is probably the energy whip towards the end - not because the effect itself looks bad mind you, but rather because how the characters are reacting to it doesn’t feel like it matches up. It’s all pretty darn good looking, and I wonder if the digital copy I caught on Amazon was the newer anniversary blu-ray, because it looked good on the projector and that old DVD-grade copy I had before certainly doesn’t look that good on it. There are a few harsh bright lights at a few parts though, I’m sure your eyes will not thank you for that. Audio is balanced well, and although the theme song constantly gets messed up with the old Superman theme song in my head, it’s still pretty good. More so than that, the “Key” song they use for traveling to Earth and back is a real earworm.
The gang is all here.
Look, I fully understand a lot of people will just say this movie sucks. I mean, it’s not the best. You know what though, that’s okay with me. It’s fun, and entertaining, and that’s really all I asked of it. Some of the punches visibly miss, some of the lines sound terrible upon delivery, and I don’t think anyone really asked for the Earth plot - but somehow, despite all reasoning and logic, it says “I don’t care, I’m still going to have a blast” and it does.