Masters of the Universe (1987)

Masters of the Universe (1987) 💀🗡🛡

“I have the power!”

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🎬 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailer shall we?

The reason reviewing this movie now is because just last night I went to go see the new Masters Of The Universe movie, how was that? We’ll my review will be up soon.

So before we even begin, I should probably mention that I have absolutely no nostalgia for this movie.

I didn’t grow up with it.

I wasn’t one of those kids running around pretending to be He-Man.

I didn’t own the toys.

And I certainly wasn’t sitting around waiting for a live-action adaptation of Masters of the Universe.

Matter of fact, the biggest reason I finally watched it was because the new movie just came out and I figured it was time to see what all the fuss was about.

After finally watching it, I completely understand why this movie has become a cult classic.

I also completely understand why so many He-Man fans hated it.

Because somehow both groups are right.

This movie is not good.

But it’s also strangely fascinating.

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Non-Spoiler Thoughts

The first thing that hit me while watching this movie is how obvious it is that the filmmakers wanted to make something much bigger than their budget would allow.

This is supposed to be an epic fantasy adventure. We’re talking about magical castles, interdimensional travel, ancient powers, giant battles, and the fate of an entire world hanging in the balance.

Instead, most of the movie takes place on Earth.

And not some exciting version of Earth either.

Just regular Earth.

The kind of Earth where teenagers hang out in music stores and drive around town.

The moment the movie leaves Eternia and settles into its Earth setting, you can practically feel the production trying to save money.

It’s one of those decisions that makes perfect sense from a studio perspective and absolutely no sense from a fan perspective.

Imagine finally making a He-Man movie and then deciding the most important location should be suburban America.

That’s basically what happened here.

The result is a movie that constantly teases a larger and more interesting story happening somewhere else.

Every time the film returns to Eternia, I found myself wishing the entire movie had been set there.

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Dolph Lundgren as He-Man

To be fair to Dolph Lundgren, he absolutely looks like He-Man.

The guy has the physique.

The presence.

The heroic appearance.

If somebody told me they pulled He-Man directly off a toy package and put him in front of a camera, I’d probably believe them.

The problem is that looking like the character can only take you so far.

Throughout most of the movie, He-Man feels oddly distant. He’s heroic, sure, but he never becomes particularly interesting.

Part of that comes from the script. He spends so much time reacting to events that he rarely gets moments to truly define who he is beyond being the hero.

I never disliked him.

I just never found myself particularly invested in him either.

Which is unfortunate considering he’s supposed to be the reason we’re all here.

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Frank Langella’s Skeletor

Now let’s talk about the real star of the movie.

Frank Langella’s Skeletor.

Good lord.

This man is operating on an entirely different level from everybody else.

I genuinely don’t know what movie the rest of the cast thought they were making.

But Langella acts like he’s starring in the greatest fantasy epic ever produced.

Every line is delivered with absolute confidence.

Every speech feels dramatic.

Every scene becomes more entertaining the second he appears.

The crazy thing is that he could have easily played Skeletor as a joke. Plenty of actors would have.

Instead he treats the character seriously.

He commits completely.

And somehow that commitment turns Skeletor into the most memorable part of the entire movie.

Whenever he’s on screen, the movie suddenly feels alive.

When he’s gone, the film starts dragging again.

That’s probably the biggest compliment I can give him.

He manages to elevate material that really shouldn’t work.

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The Story

The story itself feels like two completely different movies fighting for control.

One movie wants to be a giant fantasy adventure about the battle for Eternia.

The other wants to be a science-fiction adventure where magical warriors get stranded on Earth.

Unfortunately, the movie never finds a satisfying balance between those two ideas.

The Eternia storyline is easily the more interesting of the two. The conflict between He-Man and Skeletor has genuine potential. Castle Grayskull is visually interesting. The fantasy elements stand out.

Then the movie leaves all of that behind and spends huge chunks of its runtime focusing on Earth characters that simply aren’t as compelling.

The longer the movie goes on, the more obvious it becomes that the Earth setting is holding the story back.

You can practically see the better movie trapped inside this one.

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The Visual Effects and Production Design

Now obviously this movie came out in 1987, so I’m not going to sit here and judge it against modern special effects.

That wouldn’t be fair.

Even so, some of the effects have aged incredibly poorly.

The energy blasts.

The visual effects.

Some of the action sequences.

There are moments where the movie looks exactly like what it is: an ambitious fantasy film struggling against its limitations.

That being said, I do think some of the practical work deserves credit.

Skeletor’s makeup still looks surprisingly good.

Several costumes are genuinely impressive.

The production team clearly cared.

The problem wasn’t effort.

The problem was resources.

This feels like a movie with a much larger imagination than budget.

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Final Thoughts

What makes Masters of the Universe so interesting isn’t that it’s secretly a great movie.

It isn’t.

What makes it interesting is how much unrealized potential it contains.

You can see glimpses of a genuinely fun fantasy adventure buried beneath all the budget limitations and questionable creative decisions.

Every time the movie visits Eternia, it becomes more engaging.

Every time Skeletor appears, it becomes more entertaining.

Every time the story starts building momentum, something pulls it back down again.

By the end, I wasn’t frustrated as much as I was disappointed.

Because there’s a version of this movie that could have been genuinely good.

Instead, what we got was a strange relic from the 1980s. A movie that spends most of its runtime avoiding the very things people wanted to see.

I understand why it has fans.

I understand why it became a cult classic.

But as an actual He-Man movie, I think it misses the mark far more often than it hits it.

The best thing I can say is that it’s never boring.

Confusing?

Sometimes.

Cheesy?

Absolutely.

Ridiculous?

Constantly.

But boring?

Not really.

And honestly, Frank Langella’s Skeletor deserves a medal for carrying the entire production on his back.

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Rating

4/10

As a He-Man adaptation, it struggles. As a fantasy film, it’s uneven. As a bizarre piece of 1980s cinema featuring an unbelievably committed Skeletor performance, it’s oddly entertaining. Frank Langella gives this movie far more effort than it deserves, and somehow that alone makes it worth watching at least once.

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⚠️ SPOILER WARNING ⚠️

Everything beyond this point contains spoilers for Masters of the Universe (1987).

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Spoilers

The biggest disappointment in the entire movie is how quickly Eternia gets pushed aside.

The opening actually got me interested. Skeletor has seized control. Castle Grayskull has fallen. The heroes are desperate. The stakes feel surprisingly high.

Then almost everybody gets transported to Earth.

The second that happens, the movie loses a lot of momentum.

It’s honestly shocking how much more interesting Eternia is than the Earth storyline. Every time we return to the fantasy world, the movie suddenly remembers what it should have been about from the beginning.

Skeletor’s takeover of Castle Grayskull is probably the strongest plot element in the film. He actually feels threatening. He feels dangerous. More importantly, he feels like somebody who has already won.

That gives the movie a level of tension I wasn’t expecting.

The final confrontation is also easily the best sequence in the entire movie. It’s over-the-top, ridiculous, and incredibly cheesy, but at least it finally embraces the fantasy spectacle the film had been teasing all along.

Watching Skeletor transform into a godlike version of himself is pure 1980s insanity.

The effects haven’t aged well.

The action isn’t groundbreaking.

But there’s an energy to it that’s hard not to appreciate.

It’s one of the few moments where the movie finally feels ambitious.

Then we get the infamous ending tease where Skeletor seemingly survives and promises to return.

Watching that scene today is hilarious because you can practically feel the studio hoping a sequel is coming.

Unfortunately for them, it never happened.

Looking back, Masters of the Universe feels less like a successful adaptation and more like a giant “what if.”

What if it had a bigger budget?

What if more of the movie took place on Eternia?

What if the script focused less on Earth?

What if the rest of the cast matched Frank Langella’s energy?

We’ll never know.

What we got instead is a weird, flawed, occasionally entertaining fantasy movie that’s remembered almost entirely because one actor decided to go all-in on playing a skull-faced villain.

And honestly?

Frank Langella earned every bit of that praise.