I originally planned on seeing Scary Movie 6 today but as word of mouth spread online about the two big releases this week, I realized that would be a mistake. While the parody film was receiving less than stellar marks from fans for being unfunny, Masters of the Universe was causing fans to leave the theater having loved the film. Last minute ticket switch and I was good to go.
As I sat in that surprisingly empty IMAX theater waiting for this film to start, I wondered how they would bring this campy cartoon from my childhood to life in today’s modern world. The names for the characters are ridiculous. The costumes over the top. The villain has no real underlying reason to be a villain other than he has a skeleton for a face. And the hero rides around on a green tiger. Was I about to ruin every fond memory I had of watching this every Saturday morning when I was a kid?
The answer is no. I wasn’t ruining my fond memories of He-Man and crew. In fact, this film sees child Adam forced onto Earth through a portal, sword in hand, by the Sorceress to keep Skeletor from acquiring it. Problem is, Adam loses the sword and spends 15 years looking for it. He grows up to work in the HR office of an unnamed corporation and continues to regale people with stories from Eternia, his childhood home. Everyone thinks he’s nuts, of course, and the films gives the characters in Eternia their names by having Adam name them when he landed on Earth and started drawing them. Fisto. Mekaneck. Ram-Man. Cheesy names better suited to a comic, but to Adam, they were the people he idolized.
Once Adam finds the sword and raises it, it calls to Eternia and Teela comes to find it. She brings Adam back to Eternia to find it in ruins. Skeletor comes after them with all his goons to get the sword and after failing to prove who he really was upon landing in Eternia, Adam finally turns into He-Man. There are battle sequences throughout the rest of the film which sees Adam realize that the power of Grayskull is in him, not the sword. For once, we have a hero with brains and feelings over brawn, but also lots of brawn. His days in HR have taught him to use his words and wouldn’t it be amazing if more people did that in life?
Know what this really reminded me of? Marvel’s Thor films. It takes some of the best aspects of those films – world building, sparkly CGI world vs. Earth reality, use of music, even Idris Elba – and employs them to the live action remake of an old cartoon. And it works. Queen guitarist Brian May brings the soundtrack to life and it hits all the right notes. Shades of guitar styled tunes shot right out of the 1980s. It matched the special effects and fight scenes perfectly.
Nicholas Galitzine is convincing enough and I sure did enjoy watching him fight it out as He-Man. Idris Elba gets much more play here than he did in those Thor movies and he brings fatherly advice and a bit of humor. The men were good, but the women were better. Camila Mendes is so great as Teela and Alison Brie is hilarious as Evil-Lyn. Perfect casting. Morena Baccarin is a bit underused but the few scenes with the Sorceress are memorable. Their costumes are updated a bit but still contain enough of the original cartoon’s flair, especially with the female character’s costumes. I did like Adam wearing that pink button down shirt on Earth. It was a nice throwback to what he wore in the cartoon.
This film is intentionally campy, much like the cartoon. I was worried they would try and harden up Skeletor and Evil-Lyn and make them more menacing, but my worries were for nothing. The absurdity of these villains is what makes this whole thing so fun and bizarrely charming. Even better is that all the actors know they are in on the joke and the sell every minute of it. They have moments where there is genuine feeling, but the camp is always there giving us He-Man cartoon nostalgia from the 1980s.
The film is not perfect. There are moments where action stops so that, say, Adam’s father can send his mother and Adam off to the castle while Skeletor’s goons just stand there and watch. And then they let the two leave without a word. Moments like that happen on occasion in this film and maybe it’s just part of the campy side of the film, but everything else about it is so fun that I don’t much care that the father/son goodbye at the beginning should have happened before the goons arrived, not after.
See this on the big screen. Get a bag of popcorn and enjoy the ride. You won’t regret this fun action film that proves that modernizing something nostalgic doesn’t mean taking all the fun out of it. Stay for the credits. You’ll get to see a fun cameo for what I’m sure the director is hoping to make into a sequel.
4 out of 5 stars. One for Brain May’s music. One for the female actors. One for just the right amount of nostalgia. One for Nicholas Galitzine’s hot bod.
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Becky Tyler Art and Photography 
I originally planned on seeing Scary Movie 6 today but as word of mouth spread online about the two big releases this week, I realized that would be a mistake. While the parody film was receiving less than stellar marks from fans for being unfunny, Masters of the Universe was causing fans to leave the theater having loved the film. Last minute ticket switch and I was good to go.
As I sat in that surprisingly empty IMAX theater waiting for this film to start, I wondered how they would bring this campy cartoon from my childhood to life in today’s modern world. The names for the characters are ridiculous. The costumes over the top. The villain has no real underlying reason to be a villain other than he has a skeleton for a face. And the hero rides around on a green tiger. Was I about to ruin every fond memory I had of watching this every Saturday morning when I was a kid?
The answer is no. I wasn’t ruining my fond memories of He-Man and crew. In fact, this film sees child Adam forced onto Earth through a portal, sword in hand, by the Sorceress to keep Skeletor from acquiring it. Problem is, Adam loses the sword and spends 15 years looking for it. He grows up to work in the HR office of an unnamed corporation and continues to regale people with stories from Eternia, his childhood home. Everyone thinks he’s nuts, of course, and the films gives the characters in Eternia their names by having Adam name them when he landed on Earth and started drawing them. Fisto. Mekaneck. Ram-Man. Cheesy names better suited to a comic, but to Adam, they were the people he idolized.
Once Adam finds the sword and raises it, it calls to Eternia and Teela comes to find it. She brings Adam back to Eternia to find it in ruins. Skeletor comes after them with all his goons to get the sword and after failing to prove who he really was upon landing in Eternia, Adam finally turns into He-Man. There are battle sequences throughout the rest of the film which sees Adam realize that the power of Grayskull is in him, not the sword. For once, we have a hero with brains and feelings over brawn, but also lots of brawn. His days in HR have taught him to use his words and wouldn’t it be amazing if more people did that in life?
Know what this really reminded me of? Marvel’s Thor films. It takes some of the best aspects of those films – world building, sparkly CGI world vs. Earth reality, use of music, even Idris Elba – and employs them to the live action remake of an old cartoon. And it works. Queen guitarist Brian May brings the soundtrack to life and it hits all the right notes. Shades of guitar styled tunes shot right out of the 1980s. It matched the special effects and fight scenes perfectly.
Nicholas Galitzine is convincing enough and I sure did enjoy watching him fight it out as He-Man. Idris Elba gets much more play here than he did in those Thor movies and he brings fatherly advice and a bit of humor. The men were good, but the women were better. Camila Mendes is so great as Teela and Alison Brie is hilarious as Evil-Lyn. Perfect casting. Morena Baccarin is a bit underused but the few scenes with the Sorceress are memorable. Their costumes are updated a bit but still contain enough of the original cartoon’s flair, especially with the female character’s costumes. I did like Adam wearing that pink button down shirt on Earth. It was a nice throwback to what he wore in the cartoon.
This film is intentionally campy, much like the cartoon. I was worried they would try and harden up Skeletor and Evil-Lyn and make them more menacing, but my worries were for nothing. The absurdity of these villains is what makes this whole thing so fun and bizarrely charming. Even better is that all the actors know they are in on the joke and the sell every minute of it. They have moments where there is genuine feeling, but the camp is always there giving us He-Man cartoon nostalgia from the 1980s.
The film is not perfect. There are moments where action stops so that, say, Adam’s father can send his mother and Adam off to the castle while Skeletor’s goons just stand there and watch. And then they let the two leave without a word. Moments like that happen on occasion in this film and maybe it’s just part of the campy side of the film, but everything else about it is so fun that I don’t much care that the father/son goodbye at the beginning should have happened before the goons arrived, not after.
See this on the big screen. Get a bag of popcorn and enjoy the ride. You won’t regret this fun action film that proves that modernizing something nostalgic doesn’t mean taking all the fun out of it. Stay for the credits. You’ll get to see a fun cameo for what I’m sure the director is hoping to make into a sequel.
4 out of 5 stars. One for Brain May’s music. One for the female actors. One for just the right amount of nostalgia. One for Nicholas Galitzine’s hot bod.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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