He Has the Power (to Talk It Out)

I have to wonder if He-Man is one of those franchises that really doesn’t work outside the context that brought it into existence. Back in the day, during the very brief height of Hollywood barbarian epics (think the likes of Conan the Barbarian), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe made perfect sense. A bright and shiny, very toyetic franchise that could get kids interested, watching episode after episode on television before demanding their parents get them every action figure they could. The franchise exploded on the scene and toymaker Mattel milked it as hard as they could as fast as they could.

Barbarian stories peaked quickly, though, and just as fast as they rose they fell again, with people (and kids) quickly becoming bored with the genre. He-Man was no exception and even with a girl-friendly reinvention, She-Ra: Princess of Power, the franchise wasn’t able to stay running for long. After four years, by 1987, kids had moved on to new things and the whole franchise was cancelled. There were sporadic attempts at bringing it back, with shows in 1990, 2002, 2018, and then 2021, but few ever were able to find any kind of connection with kids the way the original series managed. The one production that really stood out was Masters of the Universe: Revelation, a continuation of the original series backed by Kevin SmithConsidering where he came from, working as a clerk in a convenience store, it's pretty impressive that (for at least a little while) Kevin Smith became a defining cinematic voice of a generation., which was more a love letter for the adult fans that remembered the show from back in the day (and even those show’s sequel series, Revolution, lacked the charm to keep the franchise going).

So it was a bit odd to hear that Hollywood was trying, yet again, to resurrect the Masters of the Universe brand with another movie. We’d had one film back in 1987, starring Dolph Lundgren, and that movie was such a miserable experience to sit through that I thought we’d all agreed to never make another He-Man film again. Did we not learn the lessons from our elders? And yet, here we are, in 2026 and there was another Masters of the Universe film. And by the look of it from the trailers, it actually seemed kind of fun. Notably it died in theaters the second it came out, as audiences still didn’t seem interested in more He-Man. But… could audiences have been wrong? Was there something interesting here despite the film bombing in theaters? By all accounts, yes there was.

The film opens in Eternia, the planet full of magic, myths, and wonders, ruled over by King Randor (James Purefoy) and Queen Marlena (Charlotte Riley). The land seems peaceful and prosperous, right up until the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto) invades with his horde of villains and fiends. Backed by his personal sorceress, Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie), Skeletor has one goal in mind: getting the Sword of Power from Castle Greyskull and claiming the power of Eternia for himself. But Marlena gets there first, pushing her son, young Adam (Artie Wilkinson-Hunt) into the castle. There the kind Sorceress of Eternia (Morena Baccarin) hands Adam the Sword of Power and tells him to keep a strong hold of it before the kid is dragged through a portal and deposited on Earth. Spoiler: he did not keep hold of the sword and promptly loses it.

Fifteen years later we find a now adult Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) working as an HR rep by day while he spends all his free time trying to track down the Sword of Power. All he wants to do is reclaim the sword so he can get transported back home. He posts everywhere online looking for the sword, hoping someone will clue him in as to where it is, and he does eventually get pointed to a comic book store where, as it turns out, the sword is on display. He grabs the sword and tries to use its power… but nothing happens. Dejected, he heads home without realizing that the sword sent a signal to Eternia and soon the troubles of that land will come for him, forcing him to pick up the blade and become a defender of the kingdom, whether he likes it or not.

Going into Masters of the Universe you have to decide what kind of movie you’re hoping for. If you’re wanting a straight-faced, dead serious adaptation of the original cartoon, this 2026 film isn’t going to suit your needs. It’s goofy and silly and it pokes constant fun at itself. But then, the original cartoon wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, and it knew what it was, so while this film might take the piss out of itself it does have its heart in the right place. It’s bright and colorful and silly, and from a certain angle that does make it a pretty solid adaptation of the source material.

Besides, in 1987 we got a dead serious Masters of the Universe film and that thing really sucked. Willingly going in a different direction for this adaptation was clearly the right move.

The silliness isn’t really the problem with Masters of the Universe ‘26. By all rights the film knows how to have fun, and it gets into the spirit of things quite well. It’s a solid adaptation, headed by director Travis Knight, that tries its hardest to bring the look, feel, and style of the classic cartoon into live action, and by and large it succeeds. While there are a few times where the characters do feel like they’re simply standing in front of a green screen, more often than not the reality of Eternia comes through and feels like a place we’re visiting. It works pretty well.

A lot of the credit for the film working as well as it two really has to go to the two leads. Galitzine is solid as Prince Adam, playing his muscle-bound character (with a sensitive soul) as something of a himbo. He’s able to find sweetness in his performance, and make his big, dumb dude somehow work in the context of the movie. Meanwhile, much as I hate to say it, Jared Leto is really quite good as Skeletor. It’s largely a voice performance, but he sounds nothing like the Leto you’d expect. He’s got an accent, and he gets into the spirit of the film in a way I haven’t seen from the actor in a long time. It really just works and it kind of makes me mad.

With that said, I could see Leto being one of the reasons why this film tanked at the Box Office. After films like Tron: Ares and Morbius is akin to Box Office poison now, killing any film that features him. While his role is smaller here, and you can’t even tell its Leto, just having his name attached might have been enough to turn away a not insubstantial portion of the audience, which, for a film that cost over $170 Mil to make (which meant it needed to clear at least $500 Mil to break even via Hollywood math), having a pretty toxic actor attached was probably a bad move for the film.

It also doesn’t help that the film is uneven. While I enjoyed a lot of it, finding it to be a very bright and silly time, there’s no denying that the film really struggles to find its pacing. Clocking in at close to two-and-a-half hours, the film is very long, with an opening act in Eternia, a second act on Earth, and then two-plus acts after to carry the story through. It’s a film that just keeps going, waffling between silly self-parody followed by dead serious action. It wants to both be a joke and then flip and make you care about every character on screen. It’s a tough line to tread and the film doesn’t always pull it off.

And this is to say nothing about the constant fisting jokes. This is a real thing, all because of one character named “Fisto”, and while one or two lines about it are funny, the joke is beaten to death and it makes you wonder who this film is for? Why are there jokes about fisting in a film that is, ostensibly, for the whole family. That feels very off, and I can’t imagine that the parents that watched this with their kids are going to be all that happy to hear the kids joking about fisting without knowing what that term means. It’s… not right.

This all makes Masters of the Universe a hard film to pin down. At times the film is fantastic (especially in a final sequence between Adam and Skeletor that I absolutely don’t want to spoil). It has great energy, a few solid scenes, and it really nails the look of the original cartoon and toy line. From the outside it seems like it knows what it wants to be. But then sometimes the characters open their mouths and the movie can’t help but stumble over itself. Maybe if the film was trimmed down to less than two hours and all the awkward humor and overly long scenes were edited out, then it could work. In its current form, though, the film struggles beat-to-beat and you can see why it didn’t do well in theaters.

Right now Masters of the Universe is finding a second life on streaming, with Amazon PrimeWhile Netflix might be the largest streaming seervice right now, other major contenders have come into the game. One of the biggest, and best funded, is Amazon Prime, the streaming-service add-on packing with free delivery and all kinds of other perks Amazon gives its members. And, with the backing of its corporate parent, this streaming service very well could become the market leader. reporting record numbers of viewers, and that seems right. The right people, at the right pace, watching the film when it’s (relatively) does feel like the right place for this film. It was never going to be a hit, not in its current form, and it was crazy that MGM spent $170 Mil on it. A shorter runtime, and less money spent, could have likely made this a casual Box Office hit. But it just doesn’t work as well as it should in its current form, and MGM took a very expected bath on the movie. I can’t say I’m surprised at all.