Review: Masters of the Universe

Posted by: Matthew Ardill  •  June 8, 2026 @ 6:09pm

Filed under: Reviews

He-Man is an interesting creature from a cultural perspective. Mattel, having scored great success with Barbie and seeing the success of G.I. Joe, decided to try to slide into the boy's toy market, cashing in on the post-Conan "Sword and Sandle" craze. In so doing, it launched a cartoon in the midst of the moral panic about advertising to children (hence the dulled down violence and educational segments at the tail end of every episode), but still managed to make an incredibly successful show that drove a line of toys to resounding success.

The cartoon itself was weird, silly, and kind of campy – so much so that a video using footage from the show Space Ghost: Coast to Coast-style with a loop of 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up" was able to parody the show while still kind of not straying that far from the source material. That said, the new film adaptation Masters of the Universe gets it, and I have to say I was shockingly pleased coming out of the theatre.

At its core, while He-Man has always been a muscle-bound hero, due to the pressures of the time there was an element of thought and kindness running through the show, and that remained present here. But you also get the appropriately inappropriate jokes about Fisto and Ram Man. We have pronoun jokes that are actually funny, and a Skeletor and Evil-Lyn that are appropriately campy. Jared Leto actually put on his best performance in years with a Skeletor that's halfway between Tim Curry's Darkness and Tim Curry's Frank n' Furter: sinister and queer and utterly delightful, which I'm here for. Meanwhile, Alison Brie plays Evil-Lyn as a lusty creep, and it clicks. Meanwhile, on the side of good ,Nicholas Galitzine plays an earnest and kind Adam, Idris Elba brings depth to what should have been a pretty shallow character (with the help of decent writing), and Camila Mendes turned the token female character of the cartoon (Teela) into someone to be reckoned with (and someone anyone who's struggled with a parent letting them down can identify with).

Hell, the film uses a song by The Cure as the emotional through line of the film, and it flipping works! I say this as a person who's a Cure fan to my bone – it actually gets both the heart of the show and the heart of the song and makes it work. It's camp, and there are moments it leans HARD into that campiness, but it never comes off as condescending or too "in" on the joke. It knows it's camp but doesn't condescend, like some films trying to milk camp but somehow missing. Add to this a degree of jokes that people who grew up on the cartoon (or even the 1987 movie) will find hilarious, and it's well worth the watch. Do yourself a favour and get out and see this while you can.

Tags: He-Man, Masters of the Universe, Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba, Jared Leto, Alison Brie, Mattel

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