{"id":1184,"date":"2026-06-02T13:08:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:08:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:08:21","slug":"masters-of-the-universe-review-nicholas-galitzine-lends-some-spark-to-a-bloated-nostalgia-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1184","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Masters of the Universe\u2019 Review: Nicholas Galitzine Lends Some Spark to a Bloated Nostalgia Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tNearly 40 years have passed since the colossal financial failure of Cannon Films\u2019 live-action feature \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d signaled the cultural falloff of Mattel\u2019s successful sci-fi sword-and-sorcery media franchise \u2014 which had, for five years, held undiscriminating Eighties kids like this critic in its thrall, before we mostly moved onto other things. But in Mattel media, as in \u201cMasters of the Universe,\u201d no one ever really dies: The denizens of Castle Grayskull have since lived on, in faintly undead form, through sundry comics and toy line revivals and, most recently, a morass of animated Netflix content. And so, with the \u201cmaybe this time\u201d mentality that colors much Hollywood studio decision-making these days, we\u2019ve come round to another live-action \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d feature: bigger in all dimensions, certainly, and better if the unabashed badness of the first one isn\u2019t especially dear to your heart.<\/p>\n

Read more Inside Ranveer Singh\u2019s \u2018Don 3\u2019 Exit, Bollywood\u2019s Biggest Industry Standoff in Years<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tDoes anyone really need it, though? If a \u201cHe-Man\u201d movie was missing from the marketplace in 2026, would you note and mourn its absence? Travis Knight\u2018s film is so loaded with jokes about its own out-of-time uncoolness that it occasionally seems to be apologizing for its very existence: \u201cYeah, I know, but that\u2019s what they went with,\u201d says flaxen warrior Adam, on identifying his signature Sword of Power weapon in his introductory voiceover. (Adam, of course, is better remembered as He-Man, though the film shies away from that lame moniker, too, until its closing minutes.) The green-screen effects are knowing in their outright fakery; the nerdiness of the whole enterprise is lampshaded with a whole setpiece in a comic-book store. At a certain point, this wink-wink quality feels dated, but not in a way that recalls the 1980s: Instead, the early Obama-era quippery of the nascent Marvel Cinematic Universe comes heavily to mind.<\/p>\n

\n\tAny sense of good-humored humility in this \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d largely dissipates, however, as it sprawls toward and then way past the two-hour mark: At 141 minutes, it assumes an event status belied by its initial air of kidding around. Knight, the animator behind Laika\u2019s inspired stop-motion spectacular \u201cKubo and the Two Strings,\u201d has form in crafting improbably engaging fare from unpromising franchise debris: His sparky live-action debut \u201cBumblebee\u201d remains the only \u201cTransformers\u201d film that is remotely a keeper. His liveliest instincts are finally thwarted, however, by a multi-headed script \u2014 credited to parties including Laika\u2019s Chris Butler, \u201cThe Lost City\u2019s\u201d Aaron and Adam Nee and franchise workhorse Dave Callaham \u2014 that attempts at once to be earnest tribute and ironic sendup. Can we really care about our hero\u2019s battle for the soul of his kingdom while we\u2019re also nodding and laughing at his dinky leather loincloth?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the film does come close to pulling off that impossible double, it\u2019s largely thanks to the man wearing said loincloth. British star Nicholas Galitzine has already proved himself a game comic performer in \u201cBottoms\u201d and \u201c100 Nights of Hero,\u201d undermining his jockish masculinity with hapless doofus energy; as an interplanetary warrior whose powers have been diminished by years in exile \u2014 and, worse, in a dead-end desk job \u2014 on Earth, his deft, bewildered swapping of alpha and beta male personae carries a thin premise further than most would manage.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe first encounter Adam as a delicate, tow-headed preteen (played by Artie Wilkinson-Hunt), prince of the idyllic planet Eternia, still overwhelmed by the combat training foisted on him by his scornful father, King Randor (James Purefoy). He forms a closer bond with chief general Duncan (Idris Elba) and his daughter Teela (Eire Farrell), though he\u2019s on his own when Eternia is invaded by skull-faced villain Skeletor (a wholly digitized and very fruitily accented Jared Leto), who takes his parents captive; a sorceress (Morena Baccarin) manages to spirit him away to Earth, together with the kingdom\u2019s crucial Sword of Power, which he promptly loses in the cosmic flight. <\/p>\n

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\n\tAnd this is the backstory that Adam (now a strapping Galitzine) has been telling baffled earthlings for the last 15-odd years, as he attempts to live a normal office-drone life while seeking the sword that can take him back home. When it\u2019s eventually located, a signal is beamed to the now-grown Teela (Camila Mendes) to come collect him \u2014 as the last hope for an Eternia all but razed under Skeletor\u2019s rule. \u201cMasters of the Universe\u201d is most enjoyable as a fish-out-of-water tale on either side of the planetary divide, as Adam\u2019s insistence on his otherworldly origins alienates others both at the workplace and on the dating scene; once back in Eternia, meanwhile, his corporate-minded suggestions to \u201cde-escalate tension\u201d and \u201cstart a dialogue\u201d cut little ice with knuckle-headed fighters named things like Ram-Man and Fisto. (This is the year\u2019s second blockbuster, after \u201cProject Hail Mary,\u201d to feature a running fisting joke, and one must wonder which coming attraction will officially make it a trend.)<\/p>\n

\n\tYet once Adam is fully in command of his sword, so to speak, and subjected to a brawny He-Man makeover that at least spares him the lank bowl cut of the original model, things get rather less spry. As the film unhurriedly lurches from one markedly similar fight scene to the next, with only Skeletor\u2019s occasional injections of ripe innuendo to liven them up a bit. He\u2019s particularly awed by Adam\u2019s now super-sized thighs, as you probably would be if you were, well, Skeletor; either way, there\u2019s more frisson between them than there is in Adam\u2019s colorless romance with Teela. (Adam\u2019s twin She-Ra, incidentally, is almost entirely absent from proceedings, pending a sequel that isn\u2019t an altogether welcome prospect the time things finally wrap up here.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are flashes of wit and amusing kitsch here and there \u2014 principally in Guy Hendrix Dyas\u2019 suitably garish production design, which conjures a semblance of medieval splendor while never forgetting that this story\u2019s natural world is plastic, and in composer Daniel Pemberton\u2019s spirited revival of the fantasy-metal sound that defined the franchise\u2019s original era. But it\u2019s a nostalgia trip that never quite belongs to the present, and never rouses any real, cherished memory of the past. The over-40s likeliest to recognize everything here likely don\u2019t require such an extended reminder; everyone else might just be bemused that He-Man ever had such power in the first place. <\/p>\n

Read more Michelle Obama Praises Dave Chappelle as \u2018One of the Smartest People on the Planet\u2019 After \u2018IMO\u2019 Podcast Appearance: \u2018One of Our Favorite Guests\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

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\t\t\u2018Masters of the Universe\u2019 Review: Nicholas Galitzine Lends Some Spark to a Bloated Nostalgia Trip<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n

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\t\tReviewed at Sony screening room, London, June 1, 2026. Running time: 141 MIN.<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba and Jared Leto, Travis Knight’s ‘Masters of the Universe’ raises a chuckle but is fatally overlong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1161,1162,1163,313,314,1164],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-camila-mendes","tag-idris-elba","tag-jared-leto","tag-masters-of-the-universe","tag-nicholas-galitzine","tag-travis-knight"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Masters of the Universe\u2019 Review: Nicholas Galitzine Lends Some Spark to a Bloated Nostalgia Trip - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1184\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Masters of the Universe\u2019 Review: Nicholas Galitzine Lends Some Spark to a Bloated Nostalgia Trip - 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