Master Class

I have never watched a He-Man or She-Ra cartoon, nor have I seen the Dolph Lundgren movie, But I do like big dumb action movies, so I figured I'd give Masters of the Universe (2026) a shot. 

It starts on the planet Eternia, a perfect land of beauty and heroes presided over by Castle Greyskull. Prince Adam is being trained by Duncan (Idris Elba) and his daughter Teela. He is young, small, unserious and not a good fencer. His father, King Rando, is ashamed. Then Skeletor and his army attack. 

Duncan, the king's Man-at-Arms, promises to hold the castle, but fails. At the last moment, the little prince is given the magic sword and tossed into a portal to Earth. On his way down, he loses the sword.

When we next meet him, he is a young adult played by Nicholas Galitzine. He is on a first date, telling the girl about his past, the story above. She leaves in a hurry. He works in HR, but spends too much time searching for the lost sword. He finally finds it the hands of a heroic statue in a comic book store. When he grabs it and says the magic words - nothing. The store wants it back, so he absconds with it.

But it looks like a signal gets sent to Eternia, because Galitzine is attacked by a beast man, and is in big trouble until grown up Teela (Camila Mendes) shows up to help, and takes him back to Eternia. But Eternia, under Skeletor's rule, is a burnt out dystopia. And Galitzine and Mendes are thrown in a dungeon.

In the same cell are a drunken wreck who turns out to be Idris Elba, and a robot janitor, voiced by Kristen Wiig. Galitzine recognizes her as a decommisioned war robot, and gets her to break them free. They meet up with the remaining loyal heroes. Galitzine remembers them from his childhood, but only by the silly nicknames he's given them: Fisto, Ram-Man, etc. It takes them a while to accept these, but I think it's cultural. After all, the enemy os named Skeletor and has a skull for a face, and his lieutenant is named Evil-Lynn (Alison Brie).

When they go up against Skeletor, Galitzine finds that he can call on the sword to become incredibly strong and buff. But he also wants to use the Earth skills he learned in HR: teamwork, communication, inclusivity. This is mostly just played for laughs. 

In fact, the general tone of the movie is silly. It's not all for laughs, but they definitely aren't taking any of this seriously. Sometimes it's characters striking a heroic pose and nothing happens - don't you hate that? A lot of it is making fun of the source material, like Galitzine telling people on Earth that he's a prince of Eternia, and having them think he's crazy. Or everyone hating their very basic nicknames. 

And I should mention the elephant in the room - Skeletor is played by box-office poison Jared Leto. And he isn't bad. His face is covered, which is a plus, and he reads his lines in a sort of greasy mid-Atlantic accent, sort of Vincent Price style. He's a good one for making villainous monologues and getting deflated. He met the assignment. 

In fact, most of the movie does. It doesn't do as much with Eternia as it might, but there are some backgrounds. I thought the humor and action were good, but not excellent. I'll compare this the recent D&D movie. Same idea, not as good.