Masters of the Universe: Mark Kermode’s film review (video).

There are some phrases cinema was always destined to deliver. “You had me at hello.” “I am your father.” “By the power of Grayskull, I have been working in Human Resources for fifteen years and appear to have misplaced both my sword and my trousers.”

Yes, Masters of the Universe has finally returned to live-action cinema, having spent so long in development hell that even Skeletor probably started checking LinkedIn. Since 2009, this reboot has passed through studios, directors, stars, streaming plans, budget panics, creative resets and enough corporate handovers to qualify as a cursed Eternian timeshare. Now, under director Travis Knight, the film emerges blinking into the sunlight as a lavish, overstuffed, neon-daft fantasy blockbuster that knows exactly how ridiculous He-Man is and, to its credit, does not spend two hours pretending otherwise.

Mark Kermode’s review rightly zeroes in on the central absurdity. This is not grimdark He-Man, thank the Sorceress. Nobody has tried to turn Castle Grayskull into a trauma metaphor with tasteful grey corridors and a podcast tie-in. Instead, the film appears to have embraced the fact that its hero is a golden-haired muscle prince who shouts magic words at a sword and then becomes a much oilier version of himself. There are films which ask to be taken seriously. Masters of the Universe arrives wearing a leather skirt, clutching a glowing blade, and asking whether anyone has seen the staff handbook.

Nicholas Galitzine’s Prince Adam is apparently less thunderous warrior-god and more socially awkward office lad who has somehow mislaid his destiny between performance reviews. Marooned on Earth after being hurled through a portal as a child, he grows up not as the obvious heir to Eternia, but as the sort of beige workplace creature who might facilitate a team-building session about active listening. This is either a bold reinvention or proof that the modern blockbuster now fears sincerity so much it must wrap even He-Man in the protective bubble wrap of awkward banter.

Oddly, it seems to work. Or at least, it gives the film its main comic engine. There is something pleasingly deranged about a man built like a gymnasium discovering that his true calling is not HR compliance but smiting skull-faced tyrants on a distant planet. The contrast is pure panto science-fantasy: half cosmic destiny, half office kitchenette. One minute Adam is the lost prince of Eternia, the next he sounds as if he is about to apologise because the meeting room booking system has double-booked Evil-Lyn.

And then there is Jared Leto as Skeletor, which is the sort of casting announcement that usually makes nearby film critics reach for the emergency whistle. Yet Kermode’s verdict, as filtered through the joyfully cruel comedy of the situation, is that this may be one of Leto’s finest performances precisely because you can barely tell it is him. The face is gone. The voice is altered. The Method has been safely locked inside a glowing skull and denied access to craft services. For once, the great theatrical thundercloud of Leto-ness has been converted into something genuinely useful: a flamboyant bone warlock bellowing through a mountain of digital prosthetics.

There is a lesson here for Hollywood. If you want a big Jared Leto villain performance, remove Jared Leto from it as much as legally possible. It is like discovering the secret ingredient in a soufflé is not adding more egg, but asking the egg to wait outside.

The wider cast sounds almost absurdly luxurious for material derived from a toy line designed to make children pester their parents in Woolworths. Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms is the sort of thing that should not exist and yet, once imagined, feels unavoidable. Camila Mendes as Teela, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Kristen Wiig voicing Roboto, Morena Baccarin as the Sorceress, James Purefoy as King Randor: this is a roll-call of people who have somehow agreed to say things about Grayskull, Havoc Staffs and possibly Battle Cat with professional conviction. Somewhere, a casting director deserves a medal, or at least a plastic Power Sword mounted above the kettle.

The film’s greatest asset may be its refusal to sand down the camp. Too many modern reboots arrive ashamed of their source material, dressing childhood nonsense in black armour and muttering about destiny as if they are applying for a philosophy fellowship. Masters of the Universe cannot really do that. It is too brightly coloured. Too daft. Too full of names like Fisto, Trap Jaw, Ram-Man and Beast Man, all of whom sound less like mythic warriors and more like rejected Gladiators contestants from 1994.

So the film apparently goes big, loud and silly, with the air of a £200 million pantomime performed by actors who understand that the correct response to “Skeletor has taken Eternia” is not subtlety, but widening the eyes and aiming for the back row. There is a certain nobility in that. If you are going to resurrect He-Man, do not whisper. Climb onto Battle Cat, point dramatically at Snake Mountain, and let Brian May’s guitar noise do the rest.

The trouble, as Kermode notes, is that even panto has a running time. At around the two-hour-plus mark, a film this flimsy begins to resemble a toy advert that has accidentally swallowed a streaming limited series. There are only so many glowing portals, battlefield speeches, comic misunderstandings and trouser jokes one can endure before the audience begins to wonder whether Eternia has an interval. A brisk ninety minutes of daftness can be glorious. A much longer stretch risks turning into a sugar crash in chainmail.

The visual effects also appear to be part of the film’s peculiar charm and part of its problem. The blockbuster landscape is now so clogged with digital spectacle that even the expensive stuff can look pre-owned. Here, though, the shonky brightness may be intentional. Eternia should not look like a real place. It should look like the inside of an eighties lunchbox after someone spilt radioactive sherbet into it. If the monsters look rubbery, the armour looks like premium cosplay, and the skies look painted by a committee of over-caffeinated toy designers, that may be closer to authenticity than any amount of tasteful realism.

Still, there is a difference between knowingly artificial and simply exhausting. That seems to be where Masters of the Universe wobbles. It wants to be silly, but also epic. Self-aware, but also heartfelt. A franchise starter, but also a joke about franchise starters. A nostalgia machine, but also a modern comedy about masculinity, destiny and the deep spiritual challenge of finding the right lower-body garment when transforming into a demi-god.

Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we are not immune to this nonsense. Many of us were raised on precisely this sort of plastic thunder. We remember a time when heroic mythology came with a barcode and when every child understood that a skull-faced villain was automatically improved by a purple hood. There is pleasure in seeing this world given the large-screen treatment again, even if the result sounds less like a clean triumph than a glitter cannon fired into a branch of Smyths Toys.

Perhaps that is enough. Not every film needs to justify civilisation. Some films exist so that a man called He-Man can return to a planet called Eternia, fight a skeleton in a cape, and remind adults that their childhoods were not profound mythic experiences but extremely successful retail operations with catchy theme music.

Mark Kermode seems to find Masters of the Universe too long, too digitally slack and too pleased with its own daftness, while still acknowledging the odd charm of its performances and its refusal to sulk in the corner wearing prestige armour. That sounds about right. This is not the future of cinema. It may not even be the future of He-Man. But as a grand, expensive, campy, sword-waving pantomime about an HR manager discovering his inner barbarian, it does at least understand one sacred truth.

When your hero’s catchphrase is “I have the power,” subtlety has already left the building, ridden off on a giant green tiger, and taken the trousers with it.