Masters of the Universe (Movie): Retro Review

     I’m always poking fun at the 90’s for the ridiculousness of their movies that are all based on toy and video game franchises, but now… the 80’s. In fact, I’m pretty sure the 80’s is the time period that started the whole “let’s make movies to sell toys and games” thing. It’s like everyone suddenly figured out that children were the key to their parents’ bank accounts. G. I. Joe, Thundercats, Transformers, Bionic Six and SO MANY more were cartoons that were meant to sell toys.

Adaptations became an insane thing at the time (leading to today’s obsessive habit) and He-Man was a juggernaut when it came to selling toys. The cartoon was pretty good (for its time) and every kid wanted every one of the toys. In my parents’ house that neither me nor my brothers live in anymore, there is still a huge laminated He-Man and the Masters of the Universe puzzle on the wall. They made this terrible movie to push the He-Man toy agenda.

I recently learned the reason this movie was made with such a paltry budget. The studio had the rights and budget to make a Spider-man movie, but they wanted a bigger budget so they chopped what they had in half and made “Masters of the Universe” and “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.” The plan was to use the immense amount of money made from those two movies to fund a bigger and better Spidey flick than they could have before. Great plan right? No? Oh, so you’ve seen those movies and that Spider-man movie was never made so I’m pretty sure you figured out the outcome. Both movies failed miserably so we had to wait for Sony Pictures, Sam Raimi, Avi Arad and Tobey McGuire.

It’s a small wonder that they chose to make this with such a small budget considering its popularity and magic and technological properties. There’s no Cringer/Battle Cat or Panthor and most of the Masters are nowhere to be found. They made up every villain other than Skeletor, Evil-Lyn and Beast-Man. They replaced Orko with a creepy gnome inventor named Gwildor and the characters we did get do not resemble their cartoon selves at all. He-Man seems to not have super-strength and they throw in a teenage couple and a TRULY idiotic cop to try to humanize the material. They even move the setting to Earth with their insane, convoluted, deus ex machina storyline about a Cosmic Key that could create portals to anywhere. They should’ve used much more money for this (and not made Superman IV), considering the success of the show, toys and notorious cheapness of the animation studio.

I give a lot of slack to older properties in understanding of their lack of special effects, but this one is really visually underwhelming. There’s even a scene with He-Man sky surfing on some rocket board thing that shows a close up of him that’s clearly not in the same spot. Skeletor’s make-up could’ve been worse I suppose, but Gwildor… the less said about his face the better. All of the awesome characters, weapons, magic and technology are reduced to a light show and an army that looks like it used leftover costumes from the set of “Spaceballs.”

The story is completely ridiculous: Gwildor’s cosmic key teleport device is the biggest threat to Skeletor, because reasons and Gwildor has managed to make a second one since he wasn’t killed after making the first one. Ol’ bone face and his goons chase after He-Man and friends in a very “the princess is in another castle” style Mcguffin chase until they eventually catch them and gets the device.

Skeletor is so completely obsessed with He-Man, that he makes decisions that are directly contradictory to success. Instead of just leaving to go home after getting the second Cosmic Key and stranding the ONLY people that can stop him in another dimension. He sticks around to make sure he can put the one man who can stop him (and his weapon mind you) in the same room with him and everything he needs to succeed.

Or instead of destroying the second Cosmic Key he half a** breaks it, but leaves just enough for Gwildor (who wouldn’t otherwise have the materials to fix it or who would’ve just been murdered for being a monster on earth) to put it back together with a spider web of wires and a keyboard that somehow survived a lengthy music store battle. He is one of the stupidest villains I’ve ever seen and he is completely incapable of recognizing a victory when it’s hugging him lovingly with four arms and an erection.

He’s not the only thing that makes no sense. The teenagers who are brought into the story for no reason are sent back in time (something Gwildor only mentions his device can do at the end that could have literally solved all of their problems with way less trouble), which just doesn’t care about rules at all. There’s just too much going on. The crazy part is the way the obsessive cop who’s in denial about everything going on around him somehow ends up as the king of Eternia… what?

This movie is a exercise in ridiculousness that the studio clearly assumed would sell itself, even though they took He-Man’s name out of the title. I can see why Dolph Lundgren hated the movie and refused to return for the sequel that would’ve have been far worse if the synopsis of the script is any indication. He-Man and Skeletor would have been back on Earth disguised as a star quarterback and a corporate CEO (named Aaron Dark no less) respectively. It’s no minor miracle that we were spared that definite crap fest. Let’s hope the completely unnecessary reboot that’s been announced is far less terrible… wouldn’t take much though.

Jonathan Jones

Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.