{"id":710665,"date":"2026-06-02T19:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/710665\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T19:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:54:11","slug":"masters-of-the-universe-review-he-man-gets-the-barbie-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/710665\/","title":{"rendered":"Masters of the Universe Review: He-Man Gets the Barbie Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike a lot of the other nerd shit that has blessed and plagued our screens for the last 20 years or so, Travis Knight\u2019s semi-charmingly derivative \u201cMasters of the Universe<\/a>\u201d stands out because it\u2019s based on a toy that was created to sell fantasy rather than the other way around. Desperate to catch up with the rest of its industry after missing out on \u201cStar Wars,\u201d Mattel<\/a> conceived of He-Man as a chance to cover all the remaining bases at once \u2014\u00a0a deliberately generic \u201csword and planet\u201d franchise that had the power to combine sorcery with sci-fi and anything else that might sell to pre-teen boys. <\/p>\n

If the IP soon resulted in iconic characters of its own, that\u2019s only because it was molded with the kind of cartoon earnestness that could never survive postmodernism; its hero was a guy named He-Man for fuck\u2019s sake, and his arch-nemesis was a cackling skull with a cool staff and a six-pack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a> \"Onslaught\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Self-aware but palpably sincere in its love for this stuff, Knight\u2019s take \u2014 a beefier and more plastic adaptation than the 1987 version starring Dolph Lundgren<\/a> and Frank Langella \u2014 embraces the fact that \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d is just a giddy hodgepodge of other things that people already love at a deeper level. Here, the reference points have been updated to reflect the blockbuster ecosystem that made a $200 million He-Man movie seem like a viable idea, which it might well have been had it come out 10 years ago. \u201cStar Wars\u201d is still in there, of course, with a garnish of \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d for good measure, but Marvel now casts a much larger shadow than either of those classic touchstones, with the adventures of Peter Quill being a particularly obvious template for this \u201980s-inflected story about a \u201cregular guy\u201d who\u2019s thrust into the middle of a winking cosmic war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the single biggest influence on this \u201cMasters of the Universe,\u201d and the single biggest reason for its existence, isn\u2019t a steroidal action movie about men being awesome \u2014 it\u2019s a decidedly feminine meta-comedy about men being pathetic. Hoping to capitalize on the boom of irreverent CGI glop-fests that it now lays to rest (releasing this film<\/a> in 2026 is roughly akin to what it would have been like had Mattel first introduced the He-Man toys to market in, say, 1998), Knight\u2019s wet sponge of a blockbuster might settle for being the last \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy,\u201d but it strenuously aspires to be the next \u201cBarbie.\u201d<\/p>\n

To a certain extent, that approach makes sense for a piece of IP that\u2019s always needed to draft off something in order to feel like itself. The problem is that being \u201cthe next \u2018Barbie\u2019\u201d effectively requires \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d to be the first \u201cKen,\u201d and this movie \u2014 fun as it is that Laika<\/a> CEO and \u201cBumblebee\u201d director Knight continues to parlay his stop-motion talents into a brilliantly toyetic blockbuster side hustle \u2014 has no real interest in doing anything new. Novelty has never been what Gen X-ers like Knight loved about planet Eternia, but an old-fashioned He-Man could never survive in the 21st century; his movie is at its best when it embraces the postmodern mode forced upon it, but that embrace comes at the expense of creating a He-Man strong enough to stand on his own two feet.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The movie\u2019s lighthearted tone, which Knight controls with the assiduousness of a stop-motion figure, is on full display from the opening voiceover of Chris Butler, David Callaham, and Aaron and Adam Nee\u2019s script, in which Eternian prince Adam Glenn (a goofy and winning Nicholas Galitzine<\/a>) does his best to explain the basic facts of his upbringing. Namely, that he was raised in a fortress known as Castle Grayskull, which was home to the Sword of Power,\u00a0an awesome weapon whose fated bearer would \u201cuse it awesomely\u201d when the time came to defend his people. <\/p>\n

Alas, Adam was only a 10-year-old runt when the evil Skeletor rocked up to steal the blade (the baddie is played by Jared Leto, seen here in his most \u201cthat was Jared Leto?\u201d performance since playing the Hatbox Ghost in \u201cHaunted Mansion\u201d), and so the small princeling was forced to flee Eternia through a portal with the blade at his side. Adam landed in Oklahoma City, the Sword of Power fell out of the sky somewhere else in the American Midwest, and our hero has been searching for it ever since in the hope that he might one day return home, vanquish Skeletor, and maybe even save his parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only problem with Adam\u2019s origin story is that he refuses to lie about it. His rom-com-obsessed roommate Hussein (Christian Vunipola) has learned to roll with it, but his Hinge dates\u2026 not so much. The same goes for his passive-aggressive boss (Sasheer Zamata) at his soft boy job in an HR department, who threatens to fire Adam if he keeps posting \u201chave you seen my sword?\u201d to internet message boards on company time. But someone has seen his sword, and it isn\u2019t long before Adam \u2014\u00a0now 25 \u2014 is reunited with the ancient weapon, as well as the friends and enemies who\u2019ve been searching for it ever since Skeletor usurped control of his father\u2019s throne.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis world is no place for the weak,\u201d Adam is cautioned as a child on Eternia, but strength \u2014\u00a0or at least brawn \u2014\u00a0doesn\u2019t seem to wield the same power in his adopted homeland of Earth. Pipsqueaks like Adam, whose rippling muscles and Kylo Ren-sized wingspan the first act of this movie hilariously tries to hide under a loose pink button-down shirt from Beta Gap, are valued for their ability to solve their problems with words instead of violence. Sort of. Adam feels weak, and somewhat embarrasses himself in front of [redacted actor making an inevitable nostalgia cameo], but that\u2019s only because a part of him still believes that real power can only be measured by the weights of a bench press. Lucky for Adam, a magic sword is about to swole him all the way up \u2014\u00a0just in time for him to learn that having big muscles isn\u2019t nearly as important as having really, REALLY big muscles. Biceps that glisten and thighs so thick that even a fabulous jerk like Skeletor can\u2019t help but call them \u201cgorgeous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

OK, so maybe \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d doesn\u2019t really commit to the idea that softness is the new strength (it would rather offer \u201cboth\u201d as a viable option than milk that paradigm for better jokes), but it\u2019s Adam\u2019s nascent self-belief that allows him to lead the charge against Skeletor after he arrives back on Eternia \u2014 the nascent self-belief that comes from suddenly transforming into himbo Thor. Where Barbie was forced to reconsider Barbieland\u2019s values after paying a visit to the real world, Adam is forced to uphold the real world\u2019s values after being zapped back to a fantasyland whose greatest warriors have been utterly demoralized by their insufficient physical force.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Warriors like his former military instructor Duncan, now a drunk who\u2019d rather sleep in his own vomit than try to escape from Skeletor\u2019s jail (he\u2019s played by Idris Elba, enjoyably riffing on his performance in the \u201cThor\u201d movies with a d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu that works in the context of a movie this derivative). And Duncan\u2019s badass daughter Teela (a commanding Camila Mendes, totally understanding the assignment), who still believes in Adam even though she lived to emasculate him as a child. Their party will swell to include a rusty old robot voiced by Kristen Wiig, a talking green tiger who doesn\u2019t do anything and generally sucks doing it, and a handful of downtrodden warriors who Knight uses to amusingly puerile comic effect, highlighted by J\u00f3hannes Haukur J\u00f3hannesson\u2019s \u201cFisto,\u201d who rediscovers his love for \u201cfisting\u201d things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The characters in \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d are considerably more fun than the vast CGI world around them, or the weirdly compact adventure that takes them through it (how this movie is 141 minutes long is an even greater mystery than why this movie is 141 minutes long). Despite the prologue teasing us with a planet composed of the coolest shit from every fantasy story you\u2019ve ever read or watched, the film\u2019s locations are limited to an underground base, a Pandoran forest, a dingy lair, and Castle Grayskull itself, all bursting with color but too digital to believe in. The action is likewise well-staged and crystal-clear, but also tired and weightless in a way that works against its cartoon logic as often as it leans into it. Knight is a lot better at this than most of his contemporaries, but tactility can be difficult to fake for someone who usually doesn\u2019t have to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By contrast, \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d pops whenever it defers to its characters. Galitzine isn\u2019t the comedic tour de force that Gosling was in the \u201cBarbie\u201d movie, but he\u2019s sweet and vacuous in a way that beautifully suits a story about a blond idiot trying to wrestle Olympus away from a power-mad skeleton, and you believe that he finds real value in all of Adam\u2019s different kinds of strength. Leto could have benefited from sharper material, but he makes an absolute meal of the dialogue he\u2019s given; his abject lack of a backstory enhances the goofiness of his lust, and the Harryhausen-inspired skull CGI that replaces the actor\u2019s face strikes just the right balance between menacing and goofy \u2014\u00a0par for the course in a movie that settles for a clear seriocomic tone in lieu of a stronger purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Alison Brie walks away from it all as the clear MVP, giving a wonderfully skeptical henchwoman performance as the dark sorceress Evil-Lyn (spoiler alert: she\u2019s a bad guy), who always seems to be looking for a way to sneak out of this story while the men beat each other senseless. Like everything else that works here, Brie\u2019s performance wrests the last scraps of freshness from a mode of filmmaking this movie knows is played out, but doesn\u2019t have the particular strength to reinvent. Of course, \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d is \u2014\u00a0and always was \u2014\u00a0nothing we haven\u2019t seen before. Knight\u2019s trouble is reconciling that fact with his movie\u2019s dim awareness that \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d is also something we may never see again.<\/p>\n

Grade: C+<\/p>\n

Amazon MGM Studios will release \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d in theaters on Friday, June 5.<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newsletter In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlike a lot of the other nerd shit that has blessed and plagued our screens for the last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,1554,25917,56925,209],"class_list":["post-710665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-masters-of-the-universe","tag-nicholas-galitzine","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}