Wahoo! He-Man fans unite! Based on the action figure line (which also spawned an animated series and hordes of merchandise) "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", this is the big screen adaptation of one of the most pivotal franchises that helped define the lives of the children of the '80s! I myself was an avid collector of MOTU toys, books, and bed sheets, so it was kind of hard to look at this movie with an unbiased eye. But, I brought it into the Hall of Judgment, sat it down next to my throne, and gave it a chance to plead its case, and I think I gave it a pretty fair ruling… yeah, I know, I’m full of shit. What can I say?
First things first, who's playing He-Man? Well, well cast in the role is B-movie staple Dolph Lundgren, probably best known for his role as the Russian punching machine Drago in Rocky IV: Rocky Vs. the Red Menace, and for his countless Direct-to-Video action epics like Army of One, Red Scorpion and Men of War. Hey, he's tall, blond, and he's pretty cut, all the qualifications to play the strongest man in Eternia! Standing beside He-Man are his faithful amigos Man-at-Arms (Jon Cypher of Food of the Gods and Spontaneous Combustion) and Teela (Chelsea Field of The Dark Half and Dust Devil), who are played quite well by their respective people. On the dark side of the coin is Skeletor (Frank Langella, who was in that Broadway adaptation of Dracula) and his evil side-chick Evil-Lyn (Meg Foster, Queen of the No-Budget flicks), along with their henchmen and an army of cookie-cutter bad guys that serve as little more than fodder for the hero to kick around.
Seems that on their home planet Eternia, He-Man and friends are trying to run the tyrant sorcerer Skeletor out of their neck of the galaxy, but unfortunately it looks like the ghoul, in all his skull faced glory, has hijacked Castle Greyskull. For those untrained in the ‘80s geek child arts, Greyskull is the ominous looking head quarters of our heroes, and home to the Sorceress (Christina Pickles of Revenge of the Nerds IV: Booger’s Wedding hahahaha), who's like the equivalent of a Goddess on Eternia. Greyskull is also the mystic source of He-Man's great powers, so if they don't get Skeletor out of there soon, the good guys are all in for some major problems.
As the trio of heroes tries to devise a way of saving the Sorceress, they happen upon a midget with a full head of frizzy red pubic hair and a little bit o' trouble, as he's being taken away by some of Skeletor's foot soldiers. Hey, my enemy's enemy is my friend, right? Well, He-Man and pals save the dwarf, who actually turns out to have some use to him after all. Seems that the mini-man is Gwildor, a key master and scientist who has developed a magical little synthesizer called the Cosmic Key that can shred the fabric of time and space, allowing it's controller to go anywhere and anywhen in the Universe they please. Perfect thing for freeing the Sorceress, right? Well, He-Man and friends think so too, so they use Gwildor to teleport them into Greyskull's throne room to break out their amiga... wait, Skeletor stole their SUV?!
Uhm, anyway, they land smack dab in the middle of Skeletor and his minions, getting themselves into a tussle while Gwildor attempts to open a portal inside the Sorceress's containment field (all magical entities are held at bay with containment fields, cuz Andy Griffith's jail is just no use!). Sadly, there's not enough time, and the good guys are forced to jump into a random portal and escape. Where does the portal lead? Here's where we cringe in fear and disgust...
If you haven't figured it out, the portal takes our protagonists to Earth. As the group ,uhm, re-groups, elsewhere it's teen angst abounds as life for high school sweethearts Julie (young Courtney Cox, scoring a little higher than future co-worker Jennifer Aniston, who’s busy elsewhere fighting a Leprechaun…) and Kevin go all 90210 over Julie's abandoning of her post, as she plans to move far away after the deaths of her parents in a plane crash. But, there's no time for that “After School Special” crap, as the couple have also found the Cosmic Key! When the two play around with the device (damn kids, always pokin' and prodin' stuff that don't belong to 'em!) it triggers a locating device Skeletor has, giving him the approximate whereabouts to send his team of mercenaries to retrieve said Key. The mercenaries consist of the savage Beast Man (the only pre-film character of the group), the laser barfing monster Saurod, the master of multi-sword combat Blade, and a midget with a hook for a hand... I forget his name at the moment. The group hunts down Julie, with whom Kevin left the Key, and attack her at a high school prom set up. But, she's saved, when He-Man jumps in and kicks some evil ass! This leads to one of the best scenes in the movie, as He-Man and Blade clash swords! Then, just as it looks like He-Man is just too outnumbered to win, Teela and Man-at-Arms arrive to play cavalry, sending the villains scurrying back to Eternia, their tails between their legs and licking their balls... err, wounds. As Julie is introduced to her saviors, Skeletor, not one for failure, zaps the coolest of his minions, Saurod, as an example to the others... he couldn't have just fried the useless midget instead?! Anyway, putting them under the leadership of Evil-Lyn now, he sends them back to finish the half-assed job they started.
Tracing the Key's signal once more, the goons instead find Kevin at Julie's home, while Jules and her new Eternian buddies are off gallivanting around or something. The baddies beat and interrogate Kevin on the Key's locale, after his cries of "GET OUT OF HERE!" and his skilled towel marksmanship are proven no match for their evil-tude. But, Kevin proves to be of no help, as a local bald detective by the name of Lubic (James Tolkan, voice of the evil videogame in the that killed Emilio Estevez in Nightmares segment, "The Bishop of Battle"), has taken it "down to the station" to file a missing property report on it to see if it was lost or stolen. That Lubic's a total boofball.
After Evil-Lyn and the gang leave to go find the Key elsewhere, Jules and the Eternians soon show up and release Kev from the interrogation collar Evil left on him. After a few introductions and some more running around, we eventually wind up at a stand-off at the local music shop. While He-Man and friends fend off their attackers with laser blasters blazing, Julie gets a surprise visit from her dead mother. As with any movie like this, the phantasmal maternal object is really the villain in disguise, as we find out when Evil-Lyn drops the facade. Too bad for the good guys that she did so AFTER Julie was stupid enough to hand over the Cosmic Key to her... Don't get me wrong, I mean, I can almost tolerate my mom and everything, but if she came back from the dead asking for some portal opening magic music maker, I'd be at least a LITTLE suspicious! Jules, being Courtney Cox, as you can imagine, isn’t all that bright.
When He-Man jumps the gun and goes sky surfing on a flying platform in pursuit of a stray foot soldier, he leaves his friends wide open for attack, as Skeletor arrives on Earth and captures all the other heroes. With no other choice, He-Man has to give himself up, trading his freedom for his friends' safety. But, when Skeletor and his army go back to Eternia along with the Cosmic Key, how are the other Eternians supposed to return home and save their imprisoned pal?! Leave that to the midget...
Combining his technical know-how with Kevin's musical "talents", Gwildor makes a temporary replacement Key with which he and the others use to head back to Eternia. Meanwhile, speaking of Eternia, Skeletor is having the time of his life as he whips He-Man into, well, "out of" shape, attempting to break him in front of the people of Eternia, as a message to anyone who would dare test his total rule. Making matters worse for the forces of virtue, Skeletor, using the power stolen from the Sorceress, becomes big shiny limited edition gold armored Skeletor! You can get your own too kids, if you send in 37 Cookie Crisp box tops and $7.95 for shipping and handling! Hurry, as supplies are limited… and we really, really need to get rid of all these unsold boxes of Cookie Crisp before they pass their expiration date…
Despite his new reflective duds, Skeletor still gets shafted and He-Man breaks free when his friends arrive. You know, since he knows they're all safe and shit, he can finally show off his real power and break free without worrying about them paying for it! With his power sword in hand, He-Man duels Skeletor in a test of true powers that can end with only one victor. And it does, as Skeletor is dropped from the throne platform and falls several miles straight down into the heart of Caste Greyskull. Does he die though, or does he pull a "Skywalker at the end of Empire" and actually come out of it? Sadly, we'll probably never know, but that's why pimply faced fan boys have their He-Man fan-fiction websites, so they can write their own endings… uhm, not that I’ve ever done anything like that before mind you.
After freeing the Sorceress, she thanks everyone, then sends Julie and Kevin back to Earth, the morning before Julie's parents are supposed to take their final fatal plane ride. This hands over the silver platter happy ending to us, the mushy audience who secretly always wants everything to work out for the good guys... so, just to make sure everyone finishes with a smile on their face, the Sorceress is willing to divert the streams of time and change the possible fate of the Universe as we know it?! Guess why it's “Masters of the Universe” and not just “Helpless Spectators of the Universe”... Oh, as for Detective Lubic, he's made into a king... His name is changed to King Richard Head, but you can call him "Dick"...
Despite how cool this movie was, there were some things that definitely needed to be fixed. First off, forget those damn Earthlings. If I'm watching He-Man beat some other worldly ass, I don't need to see another of those stupid "man out of place" flicks, let alone with someone who I hate so much, like Courtney Cox. Hey, it didn't work for Beastmaster 2 and it's not working here. As for the characters, they were all well cast, but the characters themselves needed some fixing up. Don't get me wrong, I liked Blade and Saurod, but why bother with the pathetic imp with the hook hand?! Sure, midgets are cool, but not this midget, he was just urging me to hit the FF>> button. Instead, the writers should've put in villains that were actually a part of the mythology, like Trap-Jaw, Jitsu, or my personal favorite: Webstor! There are so many great storylines and shit that could've been used BESIDES this "stranded on Earth and allied with two shithead high schoolers" routine. Hell, even without recasting character-wise, one thing that would've really made this flick a kicker would've been at least a few cameos by other MOTU characters. It would've been fan boy Heaven to have had a shot of the royal palace while the sky was going all wacky in Skeletor's magical ritual. There could've been Mekaneck, Moss Man, and Fisto looking up and gazing in wonder at the sky while Kind Randor and Queen Marlena embrace each other on a castle balcony. We could've had a cameo by Hordac, who would've been looking on in some kind of crystal ball in the Fright Zone with his minions Grizzlor and Leach. There could've been so many little things like that done that could've pushed this flick BEYOND a five star film! Okay, so it might not have won any gold statues as a result, but shit, fans love cameos and they’re the ones you make a movie like this for! You should've heard all the nerdy sighs and giddiness when I went to see X-Men! Shit, I would've enjoyed a quick shot of Battle Bones more than putting up with Courtney Cox for the whole damned movie! Even Stinkor wouldn't have been THAT bad! Oh well, fan boys out there know how hard it is to get a decent comicbook movie out there, just look at what Captain America’s been through in the last 30 years...
Aside from the need for a little rewriting, the movie was by far one of the best ever… when it comes to films based on toys. The casting was pretty much flawless, and the special effects were pretty damn sweet themselves, especially for 1987! The soundtrack was a little Star Wars heavy, but I guess after you've seen it enough, everything starts to sound like Star Wars. Even though I bitch about the whole "everyone goes to Earth" turn in the story, it's really not all that bad an idea, as I suppose it's meant to help us connect on another level with the story. Besides, like I said before, it's a movie based on a toy line, you shouldn't be expecting the end-all-be-all of science fiction greatness. It would be great to see a real sequel to this movie that would help reintroduce the characters to a new generation and fix up the problems the old skool MOTU fans had with this movie. Now, yes, there are those who know about the story behind the Van Damme vehicle Cyborg being a by-name-only sequel to Masters of the Universe, but we all know that's just a bad blemish on the He-Man name, hence why the “Masters of the Universe 2” subtitle was dropped. Anyway, Masters of the Universe is a fuckin' gold shower of childhood joy for He-Man fans, and it still gives me an irregular heartbeat every time I see it. So much so, I think I’ll have to go the whole nine yards and whip out an emoticon to denote my enjoyment of it! :)
The Moral of the Story: When making a movie, try to put out a licensed product based on that movie at least 6 years in advance, so as to indoctrinate your audience ahead of time.
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- From the over-the-top Skeletor to the dim bulb beefcake hero to the colorful supporting cast and wacky otherworldly technology, this is a definite pick for party viewing! Even if you were never a fan of He-Man, you'll probably find yourself with plenty of MST3K fodder watching this one.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out:
Flash Gordon or
Return of the Jedi
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