I have never been a fan of Heman or Masters of The Universe, but this new movie is a return to form for Hollywood. Masters of the universe talks about what it means to be a man and doesn’t degrade or demean men in the process, its oddly a movie with a simple but often forgotten message that men are strong to protect those they care about. It also deconstructs the modern message that everything in the world can be fixed with talking to people.
This is probably best shown through the movies main villain, Skeletor. He is irredeemably evil and he knows it, and any attempt to talk things out with him fails tremendously. A perfect example is When Heman asks Skeletor to face him like a man he simply responds “I have no face to face you with, and I am not a man” before sending him into a wall with blast from his warlock staff. The humor as well is carried by Skeletor probably best shown in a scene where Skeletor appears as different people from Hemans past including his date, his work enemy dale, and a guy at his gym. the way he is used through out the movie had me and the entire theater laughing. This movie has some minor sexual innuendos such a running gag with a character named Fisto who they constantly joke about him fisting things, but really most of humor is pretty clean.
The action scenes and fights felt invigorating, there are many scenes where Heman is Tasked with dispatching many different villains and the fights and kills felt like they were well planned out, if there is a pit of lava you can expect henchmen to be thrown into it. The ships and visual effects looked better then a lot of modern stuff coming out of Hollywood’s special effects departments. Everything from set back grounds to the details of Skeletors facial expressions shows that there was real skill behind this film.
This movie is a clean good action movie with a simple theme that it plays out perfectly a solid 8/10.