An extraordinary young man living an ordinary life on Earth is actually Prince Adam, exiled heir to the throne of the distant planet Eternia. Guided by a magical sword, he must return home, embrace his destiny as He-Man, and rally the Masters of the Universe to stop the tyrannical Skeletor from conquering the realm.

Masters of the Universe Review

Leaning hard, sometimes with hints of desperation, sometimes to great effect, into its Flash Gordon-ness, Masters of the Universe is a frustrating, slippery soap of a movie that shoots out of your hands every time you think you get a hold of it. In the moments when it doesn’t seem ashamed of what it is and fully embraces the source material, or even when it dials the campiness to 11, it’s a lot of over-the-top popcorn-munching fun.

Faithful character and set designs (race-swapping notwithstanding), vignettes ripped directly from the 80s cartoon, and a kicking, if derivative, rock opera soundtrack will have all occasionally smiling, and some fooled.

At its core, Masters of the Universe is a fundamentally flawed movie that needlessly reimagines He-Man’s origin story, eating up time and so radically transforming Adam’s character as to, unlike his transformation into He-Man, render him unrecognizable. More than that, it’s an unforced error that creates a tonal clash, keeping the movie from becoming something special.

In the original cartoon, Adam, much like early Clark Kent, wasn’t truly awkward or timid; those qualities functioned as a disguise, helping protect those around him from enemies who might exploit them to get to him. In 2026, however, Adam’s awkwardness isn’t an act but a built-in character flaw meant to be overcome. That change would be forgivable were it not paired with an even more fundamental misunderstanding of the character. The He-Man of 1984 was never a reluctant hero, nor one squeamish about confronting evil. Here, he often is, until the script suddenly needs him not to be. Character motivations, tone, and even basic sensibilities shift scene to scene depending on whether the filmmakers want a joke or need to move the plot forward. What initially feels like reinvention quickly becomes exhausting.

Whereas 1987’s Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren, stayed largely on Earth to accommodate budget constraints and the era’s special effects limitations, 2026’s attempt spends barely ten minutes there, just enough to turn its already reworked Adam into a bumbling fish out of water and further amplify traits the film has already overplayed. One moment, Adam hints at becoming the confident hero audiences came to see; the next, the script channels the worst instincts of modern self-aware blockbuster comedy and reduces him to a touchy-feely punchline. The result is a protagonist who never quite feels like he belongs in his own movie.

Regrettably, the script’s clashing tones don’t stop with He-Man.

When permitted, the core cast makes the most of the uneven material. Relative newcomer Nicholas Galitzine does what he can with an Adam/He-Man. Meanwhile, Camila Mendes, probably the weakest of the bunch, but not for lack of talent, struggles to find her place in a story that doesn’t really know what to do with her, largely putting her in a position to perform needed tasks that carry the team (sometimes literally) to the next sequence. Teela is helpful and encouraging, right up until the script needs a moment of interpersonal conflict. She then becomes a dismissive, snarky jerk before snapping back once again.

Probably most surprisingly, Idris Elba delivers what would have been the standout, show-stealing performance of the film. Elba is a charismatic and talented actor, so that he performs his duties admirably isn’t what’s surprising. What is surprising is that, had his Man at Arms not been emotionally sidelined immediately after a killer character intro, he’s all anyone would be talking about. I found myself sitting up and almost getting excited despite what the filmmakers were doing to Adam. Then, Rian Johnson must have given some notes, and expectations were duly subverted.

This leaves us with Jared Leto’s Skeletor. Leto, an Academy Award-winning actor who peaked with his mostly silent role as Angel Face in 1999’s Fight Club, has been dining out on good looks and obnoxious behavior ever since. The 54-year-old art student has spent the last decade as box-office poison for superhero movies, with his panned performance as the Joker in Suicide Squad, his disastrous turn as the living vampire Morbius, and his bizarre flat performance in Tron: Ares. So, the internet chatter expressing concern over the jumped-up theater kid’s stepping into the blue skin of many a Gen-Xer’s favorite cartoon villain was understandable. However, if you are still planning on seeing the film, even after reading this review, rest easy: not only is he not the worst thing in Masters of the Universe, but, by default, he’s arguably the best thing in it.

Skeletor is the perfect role for an actor with no middle ground, and although the voice is wrong (think Stewie Griffin as Darth Vader with cottonballs in his mouth), the larger-than-life, and occasionally silly villain strikes a solid balance between camp and menacing. Leto is helped, in no small measure, by the movie’s best blending of practical and digital effects. Even when the script devolves into the deepest reaches of Thor: Love and Thunder territory, he’s a delight to look upon

Ultimately, Masters of the Universe isn’t bad because it’s campy, loud, colorful, or even because it occasionally borders on parody. In fact, those are often its strongest moments. It’s at its best when it stops apologizing for being Masters of the Universe and fully commits to its cartoon roots. Unfortunately, every time the movie begins to find its footing, it undercuts itself with tonal whiplash, misplaced irony, and a version of Adam that never feels fully comfortable wearing the sword. What’s left is a visually slick adaptation that comes frustratingly close to greatness before settling for being merely watchable.

PARENTAL NOTES

Technically…

• Usually, we reserve the Parental Notes section for films that are distinctly intended for families and children. However, every now and again, there’s a movie like Masters of the Universe that looks and smells like one of those, but isn’t… exactly. We don’t want you to be blindsided if you were planning to take some younger children.
  • MotU is rated PG-13 for fantasy/sci-fi violence, and there is a lot of that, but it is very PG-13, with no blood and all lasting effects like death and stabbing blows, etc., taking place just out of view of the camera.
    • What was disappointing was the shocking volume of curse words being shotgunned out at regular intervals, mostly by Man-at-Arms.
      • Countless a-holes are issued.
      • There are multiple Gd’s.
      • A couple of S-words.
      • Teela calls Cringer a P-word.
      • Fisto is regularly said to fist people.
      • Fisto tells Ram Man to “give’em (the bad guys) head.”
      • Skeletor makes reference to the “big long sword dangling between [He-Man’s] glorious thighs.”

WOKE REPORT

What’s Not Woke

• There is a scene set in the HR department of a nameless corporation on Earth that spends virtually its entirety lampooning woke corporate culture.
  • I didn’t take points off the Woke-O-Meter for the very talked-about pronoun nameplate on Adam’s desk because the entire sequence was meant to poke fun at it and serve as a visual gag (He-Him/He-Man) rather than an endorsement.

Why the High Woke-O-Meter Score

• Even though the following list is a fairly extensive one, each infraction might only seem like a minor one. However, everything that is wrong with this movie stems from radical progressivism. The core character has been feminized into a punchline, and that grates against the elements that do work, creating an imbalance that arrests momentum, fosters plot holes, and steals focus.

She-Man

• Almost all of Adam’s time on screen as Adam is one long humiliation ritual.
  • He-Man cries or gets watery-eyed multiple times throughout the film (5-8 times).
    • There is a single dramatic moment in which it doesn’t make him look like a weepy wuss. It could have been a surprisingly poigniant (relative to the rest of the film) moment, had not most of the testosterone been leached out of the character prior to it.
      • The rest of the time, he gets watery-eyed in, if not every slightly emotional scene, then most of them.
    • He-Man’s roommate on Earth cries in two out of his three scenes. Both times were while watching sappy romances on his TV.
  • Adam really wants people to get in touch with their feelings, and tries more than once to “open a dialogue” with violent, attacking enemies.
    • At one point, he suggests to Skeletor that the two of them “end this cycle of violence and talk.” It could be taken as a comedic moment if it weren’t for the fact that it comes right after Adam finding out that the Sorceress chose him because he was more in touch with his feelings than previous champions, which apparently makes him a better choice than they were.
  • Adam spends a significant portion of the film being debased, humiliated, and or put down, and unlike his 80’s cartoon counterpart, who is only pretending to be a wimpy prince, he often deserves it.
    • The entire contrivance of his going to Earth was only so that, as a fish out of water, he could be made the brunt of jokes when he didn’t know how something considered mundane in Eternia worked or what someone’s name was, etc.
    • In the opening, he’s a runty child who would rather dance than learn to fight.
    • A little girl bullies him and shoves him to the ground. We only see it once when he was a child, but we later learn that it was a regular occurrence.
      • After the two are fully grown, she does it again, and Adam brings up her past bullying multiple times in an effort to ingratiate himself with her.
    • As a child (who appears to be 8 but is actually 10), he is a disappointment to his father.
      • His dad publicly humiliates him in front of his peers and those whom he is meant to lead once they reach adulthood and he ascends to the throne.
        • His dad, a seasoned warrior, thrashes him in a practice sword fight (again, Adam is a little kid). Then, in front of everyone, he shames and mocks him for not being able to best him.
    • As a child on Earth, a teacher publicly embarrasses him in front of the entire class, who then point at him as they laugh uproariously.
    • Our introduction to adult Adam is his acting retardely while on a date with a beautiful woman who then publicly walks out on him.
      • He’s been on Earth for 15 years yet tells this woman all about how he’s from another world with magic, lasers, and sword fighting, but doesn’t understand how that might sound crazy to a normy. Every indication is that this was a first date.
        • Adam acting stupidly at inappropriate times for the sake of cheap laughs is a regular occurrence.
    • Adam’s boss condescends to and fires him.
    • After he finds the Sword of Power, he has to struggle to remove it from the hand of a Conan-like statue that falls on him and punches him in the groin.
    • Except for when it’s time for an action sequence with Adam as He-Man, masculinity is a punchline.
      • I can’t remember who says it (I think it’s Teela), but whoever it is says that Adam has a “crushing lack of masculinity,” of which he agrees.
      • Adam doesn’t want to fight. Fighting is toxic. Mind you, this was after he beat a guy by ripping his arm off.
        • Adam is a little overwhelmed and sad that he ripped Lockjaw’s robotic arm off in self-defense and then used it to gun down a host of “men” who were preparing to murder him and his companions.
      • Duncan tells Adam what it means to be a man, being self-sacrificing and fighting when necessary, to protect those you love. Great, right? Teela rolls her eyes at it, and the tone of the moment suggests her attitude is right, and that the two “boys” are being dramatic, even though she spends 90% of her screentime fighting.
    • At one point, it seems like there might be some romantic tension between Adam and Teela, but she embarrassingly puts him in the Friend Zone instead.
    • Adam’s father laments that he didn’t just let Adam “be himself” as a boy, but instead tried to prepare him for the inescapable reality of the conflicts he would have to be part of in the future. You see, it’s bad for dads to teach their sons to be strong. It’s not that he went about it the wrong way; it’s that the concept is immoral. Never mind that Duncan raised Teela to be an unstoppable girlboss.
• Adam isn’t the only canonically strong and capable man debased in Masters of the Universe.
  • At first, it seems like Man at Arms is going to be an awesome character, an absolute standout. Then, he loses heart and spends the 15 years between the prologue and the first act becoming a good-for-nothing drunkard who regularly sleeps in his own vomit and piss. It’s been so long since we’ve had a strong male legacy character end up a washed-up, broken man, I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed it…
    • More than once, Teela lets him know what a disappointment he’s become.
    • His robot companion mocks him.
    • With all sincerity, he tells Teela,
      Spoiler

      “You’re the man that I wished I could be.”
      . You see, because she’s better than him at everything.
    • One of the key components of his arc is his getting in touch with his feelings and making himself emotionally available to Adam.
    • He cries at least once. I don’t remember why; it was hard not to be checked out by then.
• Skeletor makes an uncomfortable comment about the “big long sword dangling between [He-Man’s] glorious thighs.”

DEIternia

• Everyone already knows that Idris Elba plays Man at Arms, but they also made Ram Man asian, Triklops black, Roboto female, and made Eternos a mecca for diversity.
  • Half of the recruits in this film are chicks.
  • Who can forget everyone’s favorite character, Dian? What, you don’t recall the lady lieutenant who appeared in two whole He-Man newspaper comic strips, but never the main comics or cartoon? Well, she’s been brought to life for this, made into Adam’s childhood bully, and given one of the film’s cooler fight sequences.

GirlBoss-Lite

• Teela is definitely a girlboss. She does everything well; she flies well, is an incredible fighter, etc. I say “lite” because, despite that, she remains a secondary character throughout and doesn’t outshine Adam when he’s He-Man.