“Masters of the Universe”

He-Man or He/Him?

Masters of the Universe pays homage to the vintage 1980s television cartoon and toy series (created by Mattel) while also parodying it from a 2020s perspective. The tone — one of tongue-in-cheek parody — is both consistent within the film and consistent with the nature of contemporary superhero action movies adapted from cartoons or comic books. And the humor is often effective: for instance, the preposterous redundancy of the protagonist’s mythic name, “He-Man,” is cited during the film’s coda.

That sense of eighties-style hypermasculinity (the residue of which has never really left society, perhaps as a response to the Second Wave feminism of the late sixties and seventies and the New Age, touchy-feely, psychologically feminized brand of masculinity that incipiently began during that era and has since flourished in this century) is all the more ironic in the context of this 2020s release. Prince Adam (He-Man’s Clark Kent-style normal self) finds himself working a desk job in contemporary Oklahoma City, where his placard reads, “He/Him,” the kind of self-evident labeling (of a different sort) that would have seemed bizarre and laughable during his cartoon heyday. Indeed, on multiple occasions during the movie, Prince Adam/He-Man talks about “understanding” and “talking” rather than just cutting off someone’s arm, about conflict resolution and avoidance rather than fighting. At a late juncture, The Sorceress (played by Morena Baccarin) tells Prince Adam that she granted him his power because he could combine it with “understanding, empathy, and humanity.” During his climactic confrontation with Skeletor, the archvillain taunts our hero, telling him that he is afraid to use his power. He-Man responds that he is not afraid to do so, but that he prefers not to — before, of course, he reluctantly slays the malevolent usurper of the medieval-fantasy kingdom Eternia, to which Prince Adam is the rightful heir. On the one hand, there is a certain classicism to this trope: the traditional hero in stories and movies, such as the gunfighter in a classical Western, only resorts to violence reluctantly, when his hand is (apparently) forced. But Masters of the Universe is also parodying both the exaggerated masculine modes of the 1980s and the gender-blurring styles that are more fashionable today by playing them off each other — mutually spoofing or undercutting one another.

The casting (Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam/He-Man; Camila Mendes as his not-quite love interest and female friend Teela; Idris Elba as Teela’s fallen-from-grace father; Jared Leto as Skeletor; Alison Bree as Skeletor’s gal-pal, Evil-Lyn; Sasheer Zamata as Prince Adam’s OKC supervisor) works. That said, while the humor is somewhat smart and sophisticated, it would play better with more spontaneous acting. Spontaneous acting, however, is not exactly a hallmark of special effects-laden cartoon adaptations, in part due to the technical requirements and logistical excesses inherent in this kind of high-budget, CGI-oriented production. Still, in addition to the parodies of masculinity, there is some effective parodying of autocracy, the nature of power, and the construction of protagonists as opposed to antagonists. At one point early in the film, Skeletor laments how he still lacks the support of his subjects, rhetorically asking if he has not proven himself to be “a just and worthy leader?” Evil-Lyn humorously agrees, noting that he has done just that — even while liquidating thousands of those subjects. Later in the film, another character notes that all Skeletor cares about is “mine, mine, mine,” utterly disregarding the suffering that he has caused others. During the closing credits, a graphic silhouette parodies the famous US Marines’ raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, as the flag here mimics He-Man’s tagline, reading, “We have the power.” And an epigram during the closing credits observes, “Villains — Monologue,” “Heroes — Dialogue.” Also of note, the film parodies the rise of AI-style robots, such as a servant that observes, “Existence is a series of absurdities leading to infinite nothingness.”

For better or for worse, then, director Travis Knight and his various story and script writers are not redeploying the cartoon-and-toy series for the contemporary big screen, so much as they are using them for various forms of parody and commentary. Like most any movie of this type, the film is loaded toward action rather than narrative, but it proves impressive enough from a technical and visual perspective. A rousing hard rock/heavy metal score, led by Queen guitarist Brian May and evoking a sense of medieval fantasy, enhances the film, which amounts to a respectable form of entertainment and a “decent” movie. One could wish for something truer to the simple, earnest, uncluttered spirit of the original cartoon, or acting exchanges that suggest human naturalism and spontaneity. Still, the fact that a movie of this kind provides a fair amount of irony and parodic social commentary (however disposable it may be), in addition to its technical solidity, represents a modest achievement — and a watchable film over a two hour-and-twenty minute running length.