Masters of the Universe is the kind of movie that shouldn’t work — and largely does. Travis Knight’s live-action revival of the He-Man franchise is unashamedly campy, relentlessly colourful, shamelessly committed to the absurdity of its source material, and anchored by a Brian May guitar score that plays the whole thing like a cosmic cousin of Flash Gordon. It is not a prestige blockbuster. It is not trying to be. What it is, at its best, is exactly what the toys it’s based on were: vivid, ridiculous, and a lot more fun than any reasonable person would have predicted.
Nicholas Galitzine plays Prince Adam — a young man who grew up on Earth after being separated from the magical Sword of Power as a child, working an HR job while quietly convinced he’s the heir to an alien kingdom. When the sword resurfaces, Skeletor’s forces arrive on Earth, Teela (Camila Mendes) shows up to retrieve him, and the rest of the film is a gleefully unhinged ride through Eternia — with every action figure from the property getting at least one moment to shine.
What Travis Knight Gets Right
The most important creative decision Knight made was refusing to be embarrassed by the source material. Mekaneck has a slinky neck in live action and it genuinely works. Fisto fists things. Ram Man rams things. Every absurd toy in the lineup gets its powers used in the climactic battle and the accumulated ridiculousness, rather than cancelling out, tips over into something genuinely joyful. This is toys being smashed together with a $180 million budget and the film knows it and celebrates it rather than apologising for it.
Galitzine is excellent — physically transforming for the role while playing Adam as a likeable underdog with just the right amount of fish-out-of-water charm. The film gives him a simple but effective arc: a man who has always had the power but never believed it, surrounded by people who push him toward it. Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms is exactly the grizzled mentor the story needs, and his relationship with Adam is the film’s most consistent emotional anchor. Brian May’s score deserves its own mention — it is wall-to-wall, proudly 80s-flavoured guitar bombast that elevates every action sequence and makes the whole thing feel like a corrected timeline where Flash Gordon had a proper spiritual successor.
Jared Leto’s Skeletor — The Unexpected Highlight
Jared Leto is, by all accounts, a difficult actor to root for as a person. He is completely unrecognisable as Skeletor, and that’s meant as a compliment. The performance is all physical commitment, chewed scenery, and genuinely sharp comic delivery — Skeletor calling He-Man a “boob,” Skeletor walking through Adam’s Oklahoma City memories dressed in business casual, Skeletor doing anything at all — and it is consistently the most entertaining thing in any scene he occupies. The voice is his own rather than the iconic original, which is a missed opportunity, but what he does with the role is more than enough. The final battle between He-Man and Skeletor is the film’s standout sequence — not because it’s technically the most impressive but because it fully delivers on everything the movie has been building toward.
The film also has the confidence to actually kill Skeletor at the end. No ambiguity, no “he escaped somehow” — He-Man defeats him definitively. The post-credits scene leaves the door open for Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie) to reconstitute him if a sequel gets made, but the primary film doesn’t hedge. That creative confidence is unusual in franchise filmmaking and it’s the right call.
Where It Falls Short
The script has a committee problem. There are four credited screenwriters, and the seams show. The Earth-set first act runs significantly longer than it needs to — at 2 hours 21 minutes, the film could lose 20 minutes without losing anything essential, and most of those minutes are in Oklahoma City. Some jokes land, some don’t, and the ones that don’t tend to deflate scenes that were genuinely building toward something. Alison Brie’s Evil-Lyn is visually strong but the writing doesn’t give her enough to do until very late in the film. The emotional beats tend to announce themselves then get undercut by the next joke before they can settle.
None of this is fatal. The film’s charm carries through the rough patches and the third act is strong enough to justify the ticket price on its own. But there’s a version of this film — tighter, with a more unified comedic voice — that would be discussed alongside Thor: Ragnarok as a defining example of how to do franchise-reviving blockbuster comedy correctly. This version gets to the same neighbourhood without quite reaching that address.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| Jared Leto’s SkeletorUnrecognisable, fully committed, and consistently the funniest thing in any scene he occupies. The He-Man/Skeletor final battle delivers the payoff the franchise has needed since 1987. | The Overstayed Earth ActOklahoma City is fun for about 20 minutes. It goes on considerably longer, and trimming it would have made the film meaningfully better without losing anything essential. | Committee Script ProblemFour credited screenwriters is too many, and the jokes that don’t land tend to land in the worst possible spots — right when an emotional moment needs to breathe. |
| The Toy Box Third ActEvery action figure getting their powers used in a single battle is exactly what this franchise needed. Mekaneck, Fisto, Ram Man, Trap Jaw — all of it works in live action in ways that shouldn’t be possible. | Alison Brie UnderusedEvil-Lyn looks great and Brie commits to it, but the writing doesn’t give her meaningful moments until the final post-credits setup. The most underserved role in the ensemble. | |
| Brian May’s ScoreWall-to-wall Queen-adjacent guitar bombast that turns every action scene into a celebration. The music alone earns this film a re-watch. |
The Verdict
Masters of the Universe 2026 is a genuinely good time at the movies. It doesn’t always hit, the script has rough patches, and it’s about 20 minutes longer than it should be — but it absolutely nails what it’s going for: a colourful, campy, affectionate tribute to one of the most gloriously absurd toy lines ever conceived, anchored by a charismatic lead, a scene-stealing villain, and a soundtrack that refuses to let you not enjoy yourself. It won’t change the trajectory of franchise filmmaking, but for the people who wanted this done right for the past 40 years, it comes very close.
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