PREMISE
A young man on Earth discovers a fabulous secret legacy as the prince of an alien planet, and must recover a magic sword and return home to protect his kingdom.
THE GOOD STUFF
JARED F****** LETO- Jared Leto has had his fair share of misfires when it comes to playing these characters that he plays. When he hits it out of the park, he really, really does… it just rarely happens. We have lost this idea that he’s capable of hitting it out of the park altogether. I can say without hesitation (and I can stand 10 toes down on the opinion) that this movie… THIS MOVIE, of all things, has at bare minimum a top-three Jared Leto performance without question. I won’t go so far as to say that this is a better performance than what he had in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB or anything like that. I’m not crazy.
As a man who grew up with those cartoons being around, I can safely say that Leto didn’t base this performance on anything that those cartoons really did. I would go so far as to say that he more than likely based this performance on the “until next time” Skeletor memes that have been around forever and ever. He’s doing this twisted accent laced with cartoonish evil that makes every punchline hit. There is not a scene he does not steal; there is not a moment wasted. He is the best part about this movie by miles and miles.
THE 2ND HALF- It’s almost as if, in the middle of this script, a creative light bulb went off, and these action sequences went from typical superhero fluff to the kind of action sequences made to make the audience laugh. This film becomes MUCH funnier and more clever as it goes along, and it’s noticeable.
THE MUSIC- Funny enough, I only kind of liked the kind of music that they played in this movie. But it was impressive how well it fit the mold. An epic orchestral score is normally reserved for these kinds of movies, but this one is different. The music feels like an evolved version of what you might hear on a season of COBRA KAI. I say that as endearingly as I possibly can. Somehow, they actually got Brian May to contribute to the soundtrack in a major way. An unbelievable overachievement.
THE BAD STUFF
CGI- The ratio of bad to good CGI is relatively close. Cheesy is the goal with everything this movie has to offer, including the CGI, but man… when it’s terrible, it’s pretty terrible. The character Cringer most comes to mind here. Everything about this character looks terrible, and when the character speaks, it is very ugly-looking and aptly cringe-worthy.
Nicholas Galitzine– Definitively hit and miss. Because this movie is played for laughs so heavily, the thing he must be judged on more than anything else is how he can deliver the jokes. And compared to quite literally everybody else on this cast, his hit-to-miss ratio for being funny is noticeably NOT in his favor. He looks the part, and he did understand the assignment here, but it often felt like he was (as the youngins say) “doing the most.”
There is a scene where he has to retrieve his sword from the hands of a statue in the middle of a comic book store. The premise is funny, the setup is funny, but HE is not, and like many of the scenes in this film…It seems as if he is overacting on purpose. The ceiling is very high for Galizitine. I have no doubt he’ll have his crowning cinematic moment sooner rather than later. But this one isn’t it.
THE UGLY STUFF
ACTION- As a comedy, this movie unquestionably works. As an action film, it is the very definition of ho-hum. The action in this movie isn’t something that you haven’t seen in 100 mid-tier superhero movies at this point. When it comes to action films, the longer you watch them, the more you can tell when the action has some soul behind it, and when it’s just a glorified, elongated dance sequence. The action here is so unbelievably boring that I honestly feel this He-Man film would have been better if it had cut 25% of the on-screen action and just stuck with the characters.
**************
As soon as this movie was over, I walked out of that theater, shaking my head. I have this very terrible feeling that this movie is going to get drowned out in a major way by both the breakthrough horror films currently out and the ultra-crowded field of upcoming June movies. This movie is a spring Blockbuster that has been released in a terrible spot. It’s opening against SCARY MOVIE, a week after THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU, and the week right before the next Spielberg movie.
I hope that I’m wrong, but financially, I don’t know how this will survive without tanking, and that’s really a shame. This deserves a look. It’s worthy of your time. And in a perfect world, it would have been released at the beginning of April or March, giving it a couple of weeks to find its audience and garner some repeat viewings. Such a shame.Â
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is in theaters now
