By the Power of Grayskull, I will review this movie!

I HAVE THE POWER!!!!

But I’ve also just finished a 14-hour work day so this might be brief.

Masters of the Universe is a movie based on a toy

There’s nothing weird about that.

Not after Lego and Transformers both spawning successful franchises. Not after Barbie getting Oscar nominations.

What’s weird about Masters of the Universe was that something so lurid and gory was a toy in the first place.

It was as though some creatives from Mattel in 1981 saw the topless Valkyries riding dragons in Gerald Potterton’s Heavy Metal and the tree full of dangling corpses in John Boorman’s Excalibur and thought “That, is exactly what kids want for Christmas! Stuff like that!”

And in 1982, the world met He-man, a 5.5 inch tall, musclebound action figure with a blonde bowl cut.

He-Man’s nemesis was an action figure named Skeletor, an undead Litch-thing who was also absurdly musclebound despite being blue with rigor mortis.

Skeletor commanded an army of action figures whose design suggested Mad Max, Lovecraft and H.R. Giger but with primary colors.

He-Man had action figure buddies with names like Man-At-Arms, Ram-Man and Fisto.

Hmmm

Sounds like a great premise for WrestleMania, or a Claire Denis film, but perhaps a bit much for a Saturday morning cartoon.

And yet something about it really clicked with kids at the time. Soon, He-man was on every third lunch box in America.

There was even an earlier attempt at a movie adaptation made by Cannon Films during its death throes. It featured Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, Frank Langella as Skeletor and Courtney Cox as Orco.

It was okay, for what it was. Frank Langella was really good.

It didn’t make any money though and it was pretty much the end of He-Man’s popularity

And so, the Masters of the Universe franchise took a nap that became a coma, for it would be 39 years (!) before He-Man was on the big screen again.

But now that he’s back, it doesn’t feel the same. It feels half-assed and goofy. Like a Saturday Night Live sketch that lasts too long.

The Plot: On planet Eternia, King Randor (James Purefoy) has a problem.

His son and heir, Prince Adam, is a runt and a wus. Not even Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba), the King’s greatest warrior can train the boy to fight properly.

But the King soon has bigger problems when Skeletor (Jared Leto) leads an army of Dr. Moreau-esque beasts into the kingdom and usurps the throne. To save her son, Queen Marlena (Charlotte Riley) uses the air fryer to fold space and chucks Prince Adam into a portal to Earth.

Right before he goes, Adam is given a sword called “The Sword of Power” and told he must never lose it. He loses it pretty much immediately.

But fifteen to twenty years later when the adult Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) works in HR, he receives a text from someone claiming to have found the Sword of Power, which turns out to be part of the decor in a comic book store.

So Adam holds the sword aloft and says

By the Power of Grayskull!

and nothing happens.

Or so Adam thinks, but soon he’s being chased by Beast-Man and no one can save him except Teela (Camila Mendes) a warrior from Eternia who is Man-At-Arm’s daughter.

Teela has a space ship that can a reach Eternia in seconds and soon Adam is back on his beloved world.

But being a wus is a major problem with Skeletor around.

Before Masters of the Universe started, there was a trailer for a (dull looking) film about bank robberies starring Pete Davidson.

The problem with Pete Davidson is that he would make a better leading man than any other leading man currently working.

That includes Nicholas Galitzine, who is fine as He-Man, really, but imagine how hilarious this film would have been if Pete Davidson was the one in the blonde wig screaming “I have the power!”

It would have raised this movie from forgettable melodrama to comic masterpiece.

A lot of the supporting performances are good. I particularly liked Kristen Wiig as the voice of warrior droid, Roboto. I also liked Alison Brie’s decision to play Evil-Lyn as Kristen Wiig.

Brian Mai provides a very good score, alas one that belongs to a film with more energy than this. Or a least a film with less dick jokes than Masters of the Universe has.

Many online critics are lamenting the presence of bawdy humor in what is “supposed to be a children’s movie”.

I dunno.

There wasn’t anyone under 40 at the screening I went to.