As a kid who grew up glued to the TV watching reruns of the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the announcement of a new live-action film hit me right in the childhood. I was one of those kids who didn’t just watch the show; I lived it. I distinctly remember sprinting at top speed around the house, hoisting my plastic Power Sword high in the air, and yelling “I have the power!” at the top of my lungs. In fact, my commitment to the role was so total that I once suffered a spectacular wipeout right by the front door because I was too busy staring up at my plastic weapon to notice what my own feet were doing.
When the 1987 live-action film came along, I absolutely loved it. Say what you want about it, but it had a tremendous cast—Frank Langella’s Skeletor remains iconic—and a dark, synth-heavy vibe that completely captured my imagination. Because of that lifelong fandom, my expectations and hopes for Director Travis Knight’s 2026 Masters of the Universe were incredibly high.
Ultimately, the new movie mostly lived up to what I wanted, even if it trips over its own feet along the way.
On a production level, the film is absolutely visually stunning. The world of Eternia looks vibrant, expansive, and tangible. Accompanying the incredible visuals is a sweeping score and a killer soundtrack that gives the entire adventure the grand, epic scale it deserves. The casting of the hero is also spot-on; Nicholas Galitzine looks exactly like Prince Adam and transforms seamlessly into He-Man. For old-school fans, the Dolph Lundgren cameo is absolute solid gold—a beautiful, rewarding nod to the franchise’s cinematic history.
When it comes to the acting, Idris Elba walks away with the entire movie. Playing Duncan/Man-At-Arms, Elba is the best actor in the film by a country mile. He brings gravity, presence, and a flawless delivery to every single aspect of the role, anchoring the higher-stakes moments with effortless authority.
Unfortunately, the movie is weighed down by a serious pacing and tonal problem. It runs about 20 minutes too long, largely because it is relentlessly stuffed with forced humor that fails to land 90% of the time. Watching it feels less like an epic fantasy and more like that one friend who tries way too hard to be funny, completely missing the cue on when to give up. It’s as if the film suffers from a bizarre insecurity, deeply worried that modern audiences won’t like it for what it is, so the creators injected a massive dose of modern Marvel-style humor to ingratiate itself with the viewers. It ends up having the exact opposite effect.
This tonal clash is most apparent with the villains. Visually, Skeletor looks phenomenal—menacing, skeletal, and genuinely awesome. But the voice they gave him just doesn’t fit his physical design, and half the time he’s hard to understand. The lines Jared Leto delivers as the dark lord are weirdly garbled and compressed, never given the necessary room to breathe or command the room.
Masters of the Universe is at its absolute best when it trusts its source material and leans into taking itself seriously. The dramatic, sincere moments shine beautifully and are surprisingly touching. It is just a massive shame that these powerful beats are incessantly disrupted by the worst kind of cheap humor. By refusing to just let the narrative breathe, the studio turned what could have been an excellent, definitive adaptation into a merely good movie that ultimately overstays its welcome.
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