Review of Masters of the Universe (1987) by Jani H — 10 Jul 2009

"I have the power!".

Ok, this movie doesn't have any power... I'm pretty damn sure that most of us guys who are now in their thirties, have had He-Man action figures. I remember that I collected a lot of 'em. When I grew up, I did what every man had to do... I destroyed them. Burned them to their plastic origins. But still, fond memories remained and when the movie came out, I was anxious to see it. Probably liked it then but now when I saw it can't say the same thing. This movie destroyed my last good memories of the He-Man universe.

The cartoons that was aired on TV were, what I recall, fun to watch. A lot of good material that the movie could have based on. But no, the filmmakers had to fuck up that too. Why on earth did they have to put the Eternians to Earth? Why couldn't they give us what we want and do a decent script that would've focused on Prince Adam and his alter ego, He-Man. And were the fuck is Orko!?! What we (former) fans would've wanted is a major battle between the good and evil on Eternia, not some deserted US city.

So, the story is crap but so is pretty much everything else. The acting is horrific and even my favourite Swede, Dolph Lundgren, couldn't save this film from failing. He does look like He-Man but he doesn't "feel" like it. The action is also one of the weakest parts of the movie. Very lame...

Now we live in a time of remakes and reboots. Rumors of such a thing has been in the web for a long time. According to Imdb, next year He-Man should give it another shot. Will it work? Probably better than this one. But please, give us then what we want. A proper story with all of the good characters, cause there's a lot of good ones to choose from. Orko would be my choice...