There’s a photo of me (below) from the mid-1980s, when I was around age 5, standing on the hood of an old Plymouth in the overgrown field behind my childhood home. I’m holding He-Man’s shield in one hand and his sword, made of yellow plastic, in the other. (Unrelatedly, I’m also wearing an Incredible Hulk shirt in the picture.) And I’m grinning with pride because I have thoroughly conquered the jalopy. The vehicle never ran again, probably because I fucking destroyed it with my sword and shield. Around that time, I also had a He-Man birthday cake and a sizable collection of Mattel’s Masters of the Universe action figures. They were my first foray into toys of this kind, later replaced by G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and X-Men. However, my nostalgia for He-Man remains almost nonexistent today, perhaps because, looking back at the material, the mythology remains at once weird and unmemorable, and neither the popular animated series nor the 1987 film, Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella, holds up well. 

Over the years, Mattel has tried to revive the toy line and cartoon, but the company’s biggest effort thus far is the new feature from Amazon MGM Studios, which reportedly spent upwards of $200 million on a blockbuster-sized Masters of the Universe. If the 1980s versions of this franchise unabashedly targeted the preadolescent boy demographic, the new iteration has been reconfigured (by a sausage fest of credited screenwriters: Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, and David Callaham) to adopt a more conventional mold. The movie also incorporates the last three decades of ironic reassessment: the series’ very 1980s obsession with bulging muscles; the loincloth-centric costumes, all of which look like rejected designs from Zardoz (1974); the vague eroticism between He-Man and several characters, including his nemesis, Skeletor; and the eccentricities of the cartoon, from the many heads thrown back in laughter to the bizarre characters—all of which started first as action figures (Stinkor, Mantenna, etc.), around which the writers built a lame storyline.

Despite its origins, Masters of the Universe sets out to become a four-quadrant feature, appealing to everyone, and in that, no one in particular. The story is too bloated for little children, with a 142-minute runtime that challenged the attention spans of the kids in my prescreening, who became restless after an hour. Admittedly, so did I. The material’s self-awareness and humor aren’t memorable enough to distinguish it from other, better examples in this genre, such as Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)—a movie that I enjoy more with each subsequent viewing. And director Travis Knight can’t decide whether the audience should take these characters seriously or laugh at their inherent silliness. He attempts both and does neither very well. The result did not rekindle my nostalgia for this chapter of my childhood; it didn’t create an exciting new take for audiences of all ages, either.

A protracted opening establishes the distant realm called Eternia, where sword-and-sandal heroes stand alongside robots and flying ships with laser guns. Eternia’s resident baddie, Skeletor (voiced by Jared Leto, doing an R-rolling master-thespian thing), wants the Sword of Power, which imbues its wielder with, as you might guess, power. But it’s kept in Castle Grayskull, home of King Randor (James Purefoy), who’s disappointed by his son, Adam (Artie Wilkinson-Hunt), a young boy more interested in goofing around than learning to fight. When Skeletor attacks the castle and proves victorious, the Enchantress (Morena Baccarin), the magically inclined protector of Grayskull, sends Adam away to Earth along with the coveted sword. What happens then? Did a couple of farmers adopt him à la Superman? Or did he grow up in the foster system? The writers ignore such practical questions, picking up the story years later, when the adult Adam (now a hulking Nicholas Galitzine) works in corporate human resources. After Adam finally locates his sword, which was lost when he was transported from Eternia to Earth, he eventually finds his way home with the help of his childhood friend, Teela (Camila Mendes), to retake Grayskull from Skeletor. 

Knight’s main source of inspiration, besides the cartoon and earlier movie, seems to be the similarly themed cult classic Flash Gordon (1980). Masters of the Universe’s music features identical-sounding Howard Blake-style guitar riffs and, to echo the original songs Queen wrote for Flash Gordon, the production uses Queen’s “Princes of the Universe” on the soundtrack. In other areas, Knight directs a conventional franchise movie with choppily edited and CGI-heavy battle scenes full of anonymous violence, lifeless chase sequences, digital backdrops resembling video-game environments, and shameless product placements for Coca-Cola and Amazon. The VFX sometimes look impressive; at other times, they look cheap and generic. Fortunately, Knight’s production also offers practical effects and prosthetics for some characters, most memorably the cyborg Trap Jaw. Knight’s secret weapon is costume designer Richard Sale, who visualizes the inherently absurd look of these characters, for better or worse, in tangible garb. The actors inhabiting the excellent costumes don’t have much to do, though. Ask yourself why they hired Kristen Wiig to voice Roboto, a bland robot character whose dialogue could have easily been performed by anyone else, or even just replaced with the beeps and boops of a Star Wars droid. When you have Kristen Wiig, use her.

Elsewhere, Masters of the Universe attempts to be self-aware in its irony and sexually suggestive underpinnings. There’s a running gag about how practically everyone can’t keep their eyes off Adam after he becomes his heroic alter-ego, He-Man, given his oiled-up muscles and blonde locks. But under Adam’s pink shirt, he still looks buff, making his eventual Hulk-like transformation into a muscle-bound barbarian unremarkable. Elsewhere, I liked the detail of Adam growing up on Earth and forgetting everyone’s names on Eternia, so he makes up their names based on their physical characteristics. A man with a big metal hand becomes Fisto (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), and another with a metal head-butting helmet becomes Ram-Man (Jon Xue Zhang). The writers take advantage of this with veiled dirty jokes about fisting and Ram-Man “giving head” to Skeletor’s goons. That’s about as clever as the movie gets. As for character development, there’s almost none. Skeletor, for instance, wants to be bad for the sake of being bad. His motivations are nonexistent, resulting in an obvious, uninteresting, and one-dimensional villain.  

A key series in the conservative, Reagan-era 1980s, the Masters of the Universe cartoon and previous movie valued strength and power, muscles and might. Today, that message has negative, regressive associations with the political right, which often looks at this period from a fond standpoint. To avoid alienating any part of their audience, the filmmakers desperately try to please everyone with a mild progressive commentary to counter the franchise’s original themes. Adam’s character must learn to “be a man” to please his father, King Randor, and his makeshift father figure, Man-at-Arms (Idris Elba, in a chummy reformed drunk role). But there’s also a half-hearted message that Adam, having worked in human resources, knows the value of empathy and emotional intelligence. For a while there, the movie even claims you can’t solve every problem with muscles—that is, until He-Man resolves the conflict by pummeling Skeletor with his fists. The movie’s message is ultimately nonexistent. The committee making this movie has carefully avoided any line-in-the-sand worldview, all in an attempt to manufacture a box-office hit that will please everyone and offend no one. 

That’s exactly the problem with Masters of the Universe. It’s so afraid to have a perspective or be about something that nothing onscreen has an impact. This is not to say every movie must have a substantive message. Sometimes, a mindless adventure is enough. However, even on those terms, there’s no tension or danger here because Skeletor is never all that menacing, and Adam alternates between self-parody and earnest heroism. None of the emotional beats land, not the many father-son dynamics nor the hero’s journey. And the production’s competing tones, from its intentional camp to its sword-swinging adventure, lack the balance of wit and scope that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves so delightfully captured. For much of the runtime, I felt bored and, aside from a few chuckles at the childish humor, disengaged from everything happening. Perhaps Roboto describes the movie best when referring to life as “a series of absurdities leading to infinite nothingness.”

Photo: Brian the Barbarian

He-Man lands in theaters Friday, and reviews for Masters of the Universe are now in.

The film, a live-action adaptation of the Mattel franchise from director Travis Knight, follows Prince Adam of Eternia, who crash-lands on Earth as a child and is separated from his Sword of Power. Raised as an ordinary man named Adam Glenn, he eventually recovers the sword and returns to save his homeland, where he faces off against Skeletor.

Nicholas Galitzine stars as He-Man/Prince Adam/Adam Glenn, while Jared Leto plays the villain Skeletor. The cast also includes Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms, Camila Mendes as Teela, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Morena Baccarin as Sorceress and Kristen Wiig as Roboto.

Masters of the Universe celebrated its Los Angeles premiere last month, where the original He-Man from the 1987 film, Dolph Lundgren, praised Galitzine’s performance while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter: “You need a guy who is a leading-man type, and the muscles and the strength are secondary. You can always create that, and I think Nicholas did that. He built himself up. When I did it, it was a little more like I had the physique and had to access my boyish side to find the character.”

As of Tuesday, the movie holds a 74 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. To find out what critics are saying, read on.

THR’s Frank Scheck wrote, “The film winds up feeling so much like one of those fringe festival musical theater parodies that you find yourself waiting for the characters to burst into song … Masters of the Universe touches all the fan-serving bases, with a fun cameo by a certain star of a previous film incarnation and enough post-credit sequences to guarantee several sequels. But it all comes off as terribly forced, as if everyone involved was already trying to figure out exactly how much they’ll earn signing autographs at future Comic-Cons.”

IGN’s Clint Gage wrote, “Masters of the Universe is so much funnier than I expected, and the fight scenes are choreographed and photographed in a way that gives the sequences just enough flair to make them stand out (even if they’re not revolutionizing superhero style fisticuffs on screen). While Nicholas Galitzine and Idris Elba provide the thematic structure to the film, Jared Leto’s Skeletor gives a delightfully weird and cartoonish energy to every scene he’s in.”

YouTube critic Jeremy Jahns also highlighted Leto’s performance in his review, “Standout performance and character in Masters of the Universe: Jared Leto’s Skeletor,” Jahns said. “He was the most fun happening on screen at any given time.” He also added, “It does feel like a few different movies crushed into one. A few different ideas of what a Masters of the Universe movie should or would be. And most importantly, it had these moments of heart and life lessons that I actually liked that didn’t always land because sometimes the comedy is just there to eclipse it.” 

Inverse’s Ryan Britt wrote, “The idea of navigating your childhood hopes and fears, and incorporating those things into your adult life, is — somewhat appropriately for a movie based on an old cartoon — at the heart of the film. Not everyone who goes to see Masters of the Universe will have grown up with He-Man, but this film will make you wish that you did. And, at the same time, it’ll make you feel grateful that he’s back and quite literally, better than ever.”

The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee had a less favorable take on the film, writing in his review, “Amazon’s head-scratching $200m-budgeted misfire fails to explain why so much time, money and effort has been wasted on a movie based on a toy that kids just don’t play with any more … There’s just too much distracting confusion here — from Galitzine’s unsure performance to the script’s swirl of competing tones to the very question of why this needed to exist — for it to transport us as we both hope and expect.”

Carolina Caroline, 2025.

Directed by Adam Rehmeier.
Starring Samara Weaving, Kyle Gallner, Kyra Sedgwick, Jon Gries, Tommy G. Kendrick, P.J. Sosko, Gregg Gilmore, Jamald Gardner, Matthew Smitley, Ed Formica, and Robert Stevens Wayne.

SYNOPSIS:

A young woman joins a charming con man on the run, leaving a trail of crime and passion as they hustle through the Southeast in search of her estranged mother.

The eponymous Caroline of director Adam Rehmeier’s Carolina Caroline has never properly met her mother. That woman abandoned her and her father (Jon Gries) before she was one year old. Moving to South Carolina and growing up there, it’s also safe to say that the unfulfilled Caroline, working at a local convenience store and coming home to a father with no ambitions to leave his comfortable home chair let alone get out and see the world (actively dismissing soccer in the process, suggesting that there also might be some unsurprising internalized racism given his age and having only known the South), hasn’t properly lived. 

A chance encounter with scuzzy but charming con man Oliver (Kyle Gallner, playing in the type of role he regularly excels in), which mostly consists of Caroline observing a mental-manipulation hustle at the cash register, swapping dollar bills with confused clerks to come away with more money than he entered with, lures her to him. Impressed with her ability to pick up on the small-time psychological heist, Oliver decides to take Caroline on as his protege and partner in crime. Naturally, his fascination is also romantic, considering Caroline is an attractive woman played by Samara Weaving.

While going out to dinner together, Oliver also demonstrates a wealth of knowledge about human behavior that helps him predict how people will react in certain situations, opening the door for him to steal something of value or play successful mind games. This also greatly intrigues Caroline, as part of the reason she has never expanded her horizons beyond her small South Carolina town is that, deep down, she fears there are similarities to her mother and that she will end up hurting someone. Meanwhile, as we are watching this, we justifiably wonder if trusting Oliver at all will come back to haunt her.

Nevertheless, as the duo embarks on a string of crimes across the Southeast that gradually escalates in seriousness (at first, it is teaching Caroline how to perfect the cash register con, but not long before moving into identity theft and actual bank robberies resembling Bonnie and Clyde), it is called into question which one here might be more dangerous in the grand scheme of their characterizations. The eventual destination is South Carolina, where Caroline will hopefully meet her mother and get answers to her burning questions, including why she and her father were abandoned in the first place.

And while there is no denying that Carolina Caroline is an effectively performed film with layers and nuances that fortunately saved the film from one-dimensionality, often drawing immersion from lived-in locales (whether it be towns themselves or the bars and banks characters end up in), with the occasional person who comes across more as someone pulled off the street rather than a traditional actor, some of the screenwriting here from Tom Dean borders on hokey and unconvincing.

This also leaves the film feeling as if it is sometimes nervously afraid to commit to the story’s grimy grittiness, more concerned with keeping the characters likable than with pushing them a step too far into moral ambiguity. It’s all a bit too clean and safe for a movie about a woman slowly becoming a career criminal whilst smitten with her mentor/friend, either testing herself to see if she can be destructive like her mother, or as a means to find a semblance of freedom in justified thieving and separate herself from a boring life. Samara Weaving is terrific throughout, but especially in the later stages, determined to push back against a terrible hand of cards dealt to her in life, ready to make her own future at any cost.

To put it bluntly, though, too much is accomplished by depicting robberies and intimacy through montages, typically filled with country songs, that don’t necessarily allow one to invest in the characters and their actions. There is a hollowness underneath the otherwise entertaining surface. Even the title and nickname Carolina Caroline feels like a misguided eccentricity, and something that belongs in that straight-up romance. Thankfully, the direction and performances capture the humanity of the characters and the story, making the inevitable third-act tragedy engaging and heartbreaking.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

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