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 as 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 off of anything that those cartoons really did. I would go as far as to say that he more than likely based this performance off of 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 that he does not steal, there is not a moment that is 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 started having these action sequences go from typical superhero fluff type action to the type of action sequences that are being made in order to make the audience laugh. This film becomes MUCH funnier and more clever as it goes along and its noticeable.
THE MUSIC- Funny enough, I only kind of liked the kind of music that they played in this movie. But it was impressive that it fit the mold as much as it did. An epic orchestral score is something that normally is reserved for these kind 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 that this movie has to present as it is with 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 in comparison to quite literally everybody else on this cast, his hit to miss ratio of 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 does have to retrieve his sword out of 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 purposefully over acting. 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 that you watch them the more you can tell when the action has some soul behind it, and when it’s a glorified elongated dance sequence. The action here is so unbelievably boring that I honestly feel that this He-Man film would have been better by cutting 25% of the action that was happening on screen and just sticking with the characters.
**************
As soon as this movie was over, I walked out of that theater kind of 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 that are currently out, and the ultra crowded field of June movies that are upcoming. 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 be survives 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 in the beginning of April or March where it would have had 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
