{"id":714749,"date":"2026-06-04T12:25:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/714749\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T12:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:25:17","slug":"masters-of-the-universe-review-nicholas-galitzine-has-the-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/714749\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Masters of the Universe’ review: Nicholas Galitzine has the power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What will today\u2019s kids think of He-Man<\/a>, the muscle-bound \u201980s relic with the most iconic bob after Anna Wintour? Launched in an era where machismo meant a goofy wrestler or metal singer with an eight-octave falsetto, the steroidal beskirted barbarian has always been a bit ridiculous. C\u2019mon, his name is He-Man. What in the testosterone is that?<\/p>\n

And so, director Travis Knight<\/a> (\u201cBumblebee\u201d<\/a>) has made his reboot of \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d a dopey, friendly comedy about modern masculinity in crisis with a He-Man who openly wonders what kind of a man to be. Hurtled out of the kingdom of Eternia as a boy, this Prince Adam (a terrifically game Nicholas Galitzine<\/a>) came of age in Oklahoma City as a sweet guy who happens to be obsessed with swords. Instead of transforming into the strongest man in the galaxy to protect his throne from the evil duo of Skeletor (voiced by Jared Leto<\/a>) and Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie<\/a>), earthbound Adam parries HR complaints while sitting behind a desk plate that labels his gender identity not as He-Man but He\/Him. <\/p>\n

Times have changed. Even He-Man\u2019s talking pet tiger (Tom Wilton) asks for consent before giving him a lick.<\/p>\n

Galitzine\u2019s He-Man is more Clark Kent than Superman, a gentle, funny, under-estimated dweeb. On a blind date, his descriptions of magical griffins and burning deserts sound humiliatingly immature. Dumped before dessert, he sulks home where his bro-y roommate (Christian Vunipola) secretly watches the weepie \u201cThe Notebook\u201d when no one is looking as the soundtrack spins an acoustic cover of the Cure\u2019s \u201cBoys Don\u2019t Cry.\u201d Every man in this movie has a public persona and a private one. Even Adam\u2019s irritable female boss, Suzie (Sasheer Zamata<\/a>), hides under a people-pleasing mask. \u201cThis is my mega-serious face,\u201d she says with an unnerving grin.<\/p>\n

The performances are good; the plot, postcard-sized: Adam returns to Eternia, unleashes his alter-identity He-Man and wrestles with the pressure to live up to his new biceps. Although Adam must rescue his royal parents (James Purefoy<\/a> and Charlotte Riley<\/a>) from Skeletor, he reaches for empathy before a blade. Could Skeletor really be that bad, he asks his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes<\/a>). \u201cHe has a skull for a face,\u201d Teela insists. In this world, everyone\u2019s measured against their looks.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another question: Could Skeletor really be Jared Leto? Physically, of course not. Skeletor is all pixels with a clattering jaw perfect for chewing the scenery. (The bully is especially hilarious when the story transplants him to an ordinary weight-lifting gym \u2014 call him Skele-Chad.) Leto\u2019s grumbling Brit-inflected baritone is an unrecognizable concoction of trilled r\u2019s and plummy vowels \u2014 and the best performance he\u2019s done in years. With apologies to Bette Midler<\/a>, you should hear the gravitas Leto brings to calling his minions \u201cthe buttworms beneath my feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s the humor level of the dialogue. Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee and Dave Callaham have written a heavy-handed script in which, when Castle Grayskull comes under attack, Idris Elba\u2019s<\/a> soldier is forced to yell, \u201cWe\u2019re under attack!\u201d You know, in case the exploding laser beams weren\u2019t obvious.<\/p>\n

Obviousness is this film\u2019s handicap \u2014 and the main joke. In this movie\u2019s lore, juvenile Adam, played by an adorable Artie Wilkinson-Hunt, is the guilty child who invented his meathead He-Man moniker, as well the nicknames of his allies Ram-Man, Mekaneck and Fisto, who all look exactly as they sound to their chagrin. \u201cI don\u2019t fist anyone,\u201d Fisto (J\u00f3hannes Haukur J\u00f3hannesson<\/a>) protests. The grown-ups in the audience snicker.<\/p>\n

Knight was a kid himself when the cartoon version of \u201cHe-Man and the Masters of the Universe\u201d<\/a> debuted on television. As with his \u201cTransformers\u201d spin-off \u201cBumblebee,\u201d he makes movies like a child who loves taking his action figures out of the box and giving them a silly soul.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s no hack: Knight\u2019s debut film, \u201cKubo and the Two Strings,\u201d <\/a>was nominated for an Academy Award for animation. Raised with an affection for brands (his father, Phil Knight<\/a>, is the co-founder of Nike), he also feels obliged to include so much fan service for his generation that kids will have to swashbuckle through confusing callbacks to discover He-Man for themselves. One battle scene is scored to 4 Non Blondes\u2019<\/a> \u201cWhat\u2019s Up?\u201d simply as a nod to a He-Man mash-up video<\/a> that went viral back in 2005, a clash as wonky as it sounds. Yet Daniel Pemberton\u2019s<\/a> opening theme music is a rousing crescendo of stadium rock synthesizers. You can hear Queen guitarist Brian May<\/a> in the score \u2014 not merely as an influence. It\u2019s actually him.<\/p>\n

Culturally, hyper-machismo has oscillated from cool to lame to ironically cool and back again for decades. Even Queen itself was deemed lame until \u201cWayne\u2019s World\u201d<\/a> resurrected \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d as headbanging slapstick. If you spot a guy swaggering like a brute from Eternia on the sidewalk, masked or not, he probably thinks he\u2019s more awesome than everyone else does. Likewise, when He-Man smashes skulls to a wailing metal soundtrack, I no longer know if I\u2019m meant to be snickering with the electric guitars or at them. Neither does the movie, which seems to decide each scene\u2019s individual tone on a coin flip.<\/p>\n

Frankly, the dorky version of Adam is more fun than the heroic He-Man, even with Knight hammering us every minute to laugh that he\u2019s a total weakling. Galitzine embraces the indignity. Zooming through the air in a flying Sky-Sled, he wedges his face into a triple chin. Dazed and enthusiastic, Galitzine\u2019s human charm counterbalances Eternia\u2019s synthetic feel, a blandscape of bright forests and cliffside dungeons that looks dated \u2014 not to 1983 but to last decade\u2019s greenscreen-heavy would-be fantasy franchises like \u201cClash of the Titans\u201d<\/a> and \u201cJohn Carter.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t make Galitzine do five of these movies, even though he\u2019s very good. An unusually pretty leading man who is quirkier and funnier than he looks, Galitzine is the kind of rising talent Hollywood rarely knows how to handle. In his previous roles, he gave off the impression of being flummoxed by his own attractiveness, whether as a queer prince (\u201cRed, White & Royal Blue\u201d<\/a>), a Harry Styles-esque pop star (\u201cThe Idea of You\u201d<\/a>) or a popular football jock whose high school classmates are oblivious that he has the IQ of a second-grader (\u201cBottoms\u201d<\/a>). Here, Galitzine multiplies that self-conscious gag times a thousand, visibly dazzled by his own six-pack when he transforms from himbo to gym-bro. Even Skeletor is agog over the \u201cbig long sword dangling between his thighs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smartly cast, Galitzine could prove to have the potential of Brad Pitt, another blond hunk who longed to get weird, chafing against roles that made him take off his shirt until he hit 55 and realized it was a flex. But shouldering a wobbly, expensive summer tentpole is a risk \u2014 just ask Sam Worthington<\/a> or Taylor Kitsch<\/a>. If \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d tanks, here\u2019s hoping Galitzine summons the strength to dig himself out of the rubble.<\/p>\n

‘Masters of the Universe’<\/p>\n

Rated: PG-13, for sequences of violence\/action, some suggestive material, and language<\/p>\n

Running time: 2 hours, 21 minutes<\/p>\n

Playing: Opening Friday, June 5 in wide release<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What will today\u2019s kids think of He-Man, the muscle-bound \u201980s relic with the most iconic bob after Anna…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9697,64,63,134,347032,1689,347030,347034,63586,122860,42881,347031,11554,6617,347033,15460,344,237900,20374],"class_list":["post-714749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-adam","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-eternia","tag-film","tag-galitzine","tag-guilty-child","tag-he-man","tag-jared-leto","tag-kid","tag-knight","tag-man","tag-master","tag-mega-serious-face","tag-movie","tag-movies","tag-skeletor","tag-universe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}