At The Movies with James Phelan: Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe
I’ve been at this reviewing gig for a few months now and I’ve yet to put the boot into any film and just eviscerate it.
From the outside, this might look like the moment to unleash but I’m not going to. Is this movie perfect? Far from it. But the key question becomes what does one expect from a movie called ‘Masters of the Universe’?
A colourful and silly sci fi saga with lots of action with a few attempts at humour? Sounds about right. And that’s what we get. Equally, am I the target audience for this? Nope. But I remember the cartoon source material about the battles between He-Man and Skeletor from my childhood. And who doesn’t want to see those sketchy adventures get the lavish big budget treatment?
At the preview screening I attended, the film was preceded by a video clip message from its director Travis Knight within which he proved his intimate knowledge of current Irish culture from spice bags to Marty Morrissey. It was a warm and witty touch. Frankly I wish the clip played with every showing of the movie in this country because it was genuinely funny and a charming mood setter.
The film starts at a pace with our eventual hero Prince Adam escaping from a Skeletor attack on Eternia. A very young Adam is entrusted with the magical Sword of Power but he loses his grip on the blade as he zips through a wormhole to the safety of Earth. The action cuts to 15 years later as we meet a grown-up Adam mired in a human resources job and living a mundane existence.
He tries to keep his memories of Eternia alive by confiding his secret upbringing to close friends and prospective dates. But Adam naturally sounds like a crazy person. So, we see him even begin to doubt his own recollections of his childhood. The only item that would prove his origin story is the missing sword, which he scours the internet for during his many bored reveries at his sterile job.
Like a lot of hero journeys, this film is at its strongest in this first act as Adam flounders with normal life. During this stretch his lunatic-looking quest is mined for humour. The appropriately muscled actor Nicholas Galitzine enters into the spirit of the main role with admirable gusto. Soon he has a lead on the sword, which naturally is being displayed as a pricey fantasy prop in a comic book store.
After a few false starts, Adam is whisked back to Eternia by former childhood chum Teela where he has competing emotions. He’s delighted to confirm that he’s not mad but distraught to see Eternia is crushed under the boot heel of Skeletor’s relentless reign. Indeed, the skull-faced bad guy covets Adam’s sword of power as the final jigsaw piece to assert his total dominance over the dimension.
Again, after a few perfunctory obstacles, Adam finds a way into accessing his alter ego role as He-Man. Around then the film settles into fairly stock fantasy CGI sets and action sequences as we hurtle towards a predictable outcome. In terms of comedy this film seems to really subscribe to the playbook that the ‘Deadpool’ films perfected. You know the kind of acidic asides that rip through the heroic hubris on show. This release valve-style humour lets the audience in on the joke early.
There’s also a recurring use of the main characters embarking on rousing speeches underscored by a suitable swell of music on the soundtrack. Only for the speech and music to peter out into an inert dead end as the attention of minions or even the speech maker drifts away.
Most surprising is the cast that this film attracted. Fine actors like Alison Brie and Oscar winner Jared Leto climb onboard. And the frankly ubiquitous Idris Elba shows up as a royal protector. He really seems to crop up in so many franchises. He was even in the film that this aspiring wannabe would love to emulate – ‘Thor: Ragnarok’. This film doesn’t hit those heights but falls closer in quality to the fondly remembered ‘Flash Gordon’ film. A similarity deepened by Queen’s music rocking up prominently in a late sequence in this film too.
So that hopefully gives any cinema goer enough steers to gauge whether ‘Masters of the Universe’ is worth a gamble. Box office returns will soon decide He-Man’s fate. By the power of grey matter, I have no idea about the destiny of this fantasy. It wasn’t built to be a critic’s darling but it just might be the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.
