Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

lothos-370-690020 While I did watch the cartoon, even as a child I got bored a couple of episodes in and found it repetitive and mindless. The film at least stays true in those regards, reusing shots and locations. While many reviews I've read mention it being boring I found it was just cheap on every level. To the point where a sci-fi film spent more time in LA alleyway ways and houses than on an alien world or fantastical sets. The acting as you can imagine was atrocious, as was the script, but what do you expect from Canon, let's crap this one out asap and move on to the next, films.

man14 I saw this film for the first time 30 years ago, when it premired in my country (Portugal) in July 1988. I was 15 then, and for a teenager in the 80's this film was a treat. It had everything: a great hero, a great villain, a lot of fantasy, great fight scenes, hot chicks (Chelsea Field looked realy hot in that tight outfit of hers), awsome special effects. It's no wonder I loved it, no wonder it became one of my favourite fantasy films. Of course, when we're young we tend to overlook the flaws of our favourite films, either because we're so invested in the story and with the fate of the characters, or simply because we're young and not that experienced as moviegoers. The fact is that this film has flaws. The screenplay is very unbalanced, there is no character introduction, the writers simply assume the audience knows these characters and their world, and that's a mistake. I and most kids my age knew the comics this film is based on, but a lot of people in the audience didn't and some kind of introduction would have been nice. The pace is also very uneven, first you have about 10-15 minutes of very fast fight scenes in Eternia and then the action is transfered to Earth and the pace becomes rather slow, taking the time to introduce all the earth characters and their motivation. It's only when Skeletor decides to come to Earth himself with his army that the pace picks up again. The acting isn't remarkable, but it isn't bad either. The best of them all, unsurprisingly, is the great Frank Langela as Skeletor - he manages to make a rather bi-dimensional and un-interesting character into a tri-dimensional person, a real evil-doer that you would hate to meet in person. Lundgren looks the part, but is acting is a little wooden. Still, he looks great swinging a sword and is awsome at kicking @ss, so we forgive him for not being that great an actor. The rest of the cast are adequate in their parts, which they play competently. There are a lot of cheesy lines in this movie, as was typical in this kind of flick in the 80's, but that only contributes to it's charm, even 30 years later. The special effects, though acceptable for 1987, are clearly dated, the film hasn't aged well in that department. Skeletor's makeup, though, is pretty good, even by today's standards. The direction is adequate, Gary Goddard did the best he could with what he was given to work with. Given a larger budget and a better screenplay he probably would have made a much better movie. Still, it's a very entertaining movie and it brings back good memories from my youth. If you ignore the somewhat dated special effects and the overall cheesyness of the film, you're in for a lot of fun. I give it 6 stars out of 10.

bh_tafe3 Of all the things to admire about Frank Langella, and there are many, one of the more obscure is that his role here, as the villain Skeletor, is one of his favourites. Here's man who's been nominated for Oscars, been picky with the roles he's selected over a long career, and one of his favourite roles was playing a masked Shakespearean villain in a movie made on the cheap for kids that few people saw. Gotta respect that.So let's go back in time to the 1980s, and He-Man, subtle homosexual overtones and all, was King of Cartoon Land. "I have the POWER!!!" If you were young at the time, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So it was only a matter of time before a Hollywood studio got hold of the property and made a movie. Enter Cannon Films, makers of such masterpieces as Superman 4, The (ex)Terminator, and The Happy Hookers, to try and milk this cash cow.As the hero of the film we have Dolph Lundgren, just off the boat from Sweden and speaking his lines phonetically. And that will make a lot of his performance in this make sense. Poor guy literally has no idea what he's saying. He-Man is trying to save the kingdom of Eternia from Skeletor (Langella) who's forces have captured the Sorceress of Gray-Skull (Christina Pickles-nice name). Old Skull boy wants to take the Sorcerer's power and add it to his own while making some awesome Shakespearean monologues to his henchmen. To make matters worse Grinners has also stolen the mysterious "cosmic key" off a Dark Crystal reject. The key enables Skels to travel wherever he wants to in the Universe by playing a tune, which makes me wonder where he will end up if he plays Sweet Dreams by the Eurhythmics. Luckily He-Man is able to steal the key, and not wanting to get his ass kicked by the baddies at Castle Gray-Skull (including Evil-Lyn, played by Meg Foster, who I really need to introduce somewhere in this plot summary) He-Man and some offsiders cosmically leg it to Earth. Joining He-Man we have Man-at-Arms (a likable turn from Jon Cypher) his daughter Teela (Chelsea Field-The Last Boyscout), and the afore mentioned Dark Crystal reject Gwildor (Billy Barty, Nope, me neither).Once on earth they lose the key and it's found by Kevin (Robert Duncan McNeil of Star Trek Voyager fame) who thinks it's some darn fangle new Synthesizer. He has a girlfriend Julie (Courtney Cox) and eventually they get sucked into the main plot as the Laughing Langella and his forces come to earth to retrieve the key. Also dragged along is Detective Lubic (James Tolkan, the Principal from the Back to the Future films) and they all end up in Eternia to listen to another Langella monologue and eventually see He-Man save the Sorceress and kick Skeletor's ass.This movie is made on the cheap, and has a star who literally doesn't know what he's doing, or saying, or what anyone is saying to him. But what it does have aside from that is a surprising amount of fun. And I don't mean laughing at the movie, though there is certainly opportunity to do that in spades, but I mean the type of fun that is just you, as the viewer, enjoying yourself watching these guys. Front and centre of the enjoyment is Langella who relishes the opportunity to use his theatre training to run off on some truly glorious monologues. But I like a lot of the minor players in this too O'Neill and Cox get into this, as does Cypher. Foster, who apparently was sweltering in her costume for most of the filming, gives a perfectly acceptable portrayal of a villainess/ evil lackey.Masters of the Universe has a hero and a story who, apart from the homo-erotic subtext, are far removed from the cartoon. It's cheap, and obviously so, and has a lead actor giving a performance that has to be seen to be believed. It's no surprise at all that it bombed, and bombed huge. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy this. This is the type of film that, if you were switching through channels on your TV on a rainy afternoon, you could put on and be pleasantly diverted, and sometimes that's all a movie needs to be. By no means Masterful, but hardly embarrassing. Ultimately, to summarise: not good, but it'll do.

zetes I remember hating this when I was a kid, I'm guessing because they changed so much stuff from my beloved cartoon. Of course, the cartoon was garbage in the first place, I realize now, only existing to sell toys. The toys were pretty cool. Revisiting the film almost 30 years later, and knowing that it came from the Canon Film Group, I was hoping for a dumpster fire of a film, something my friend and I could laugh at. Unfortunately, it's borderline competent, which is quite a bit worse. It's more or less a rip-off of Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian. The script is awful, but the production design and costumes are very good. Cheaper than Star Wars, obviously, but still not bad at all. Frank Langella plays the villain, Skeletor, fairly well, and Meg Foster is a good henchwoman to him. The heroes are less interesting, with Dolph Lundgren as He-Man (most annoying, he's off screen for long periods of time). The film is perhaps most famous now for co-starring a young Courtney Cox. The film as a whole is kind of a bore and pretty forgettable, which is probably how I felt as a kid, too.