I’m Trevor with the Sasquatch Movie Minute with a look at MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, directed by Travis Knight, starring Nicholas Galitzine. He-Man must make his way back home to defeat Skeletor and claim the throne of planet Eternia.

3 out of 5

This came out about as well as it possibly could have! HE-MAN was a fixture of my childhood and the whole backstory of how a toy brand became a Reagan-era de-regulated mish-mash of medieval/alien/sci-fi/magic lore is pretty fascinating. Look, this movie was already done as the excellent THOR: RAGNAROK. The bright colors, rock songs, sub-meta winking fun. But the action is mostly poppy and different, some of the jokes land, and it hits the 80s-kid vibe it so desperately wants to. Its way too long, and the Earth part was a waste, but there is a lot of care taken here. I love how all the silly names like LockJaw or Fisto or Ram-Man were explained as the names 5-year old Adam made-up when he was banished on Earth. Clever! There is also a lot of confused commentary about what it is to be a man, like they are trying to do a BARBIE-style gender exploration, that just doesn’t work.

Best Scene. The first transformation scene from Adam into He-Man really cooked. All my memories of the cartoon and action figures came up to the surface; I loved that it hit something young and lost in me.

Best Performance. Jared Leto as Skeletor was fantastic; silly, evil, mincing, and weird. And that amazing voice! There is a bit where he goes into Adam’s mind and Skeletor is in all these weird costumes that was the exact right tone of absurd that the rest of the movie should have been. Also, Idris Elba (what is HE doing here?) had some lovely moments early on.

This movie was better than I thought, if you were an 80s He-Man kid, relax and enjoy this silly movie.