Masters of the Universe (2026) Review
Does Masters of the Universe (2026) have the power? Well, I was able to see the film last night at an early screening. I’m 21 years old, so I didn’t grow up watching the cartoon or the 1987 movie with Dolph Lundgren. I didn’t know this world at all prior to going into this movie. What did I think about the film? Is it any good? Let’s talk about it!
The Good
For me, the best thing about this movie was the cast and characters. All the characters in the movie are fun and lively, they have fun personalities or they’re played by actors that you enjoy seeing on screen. What’s fun about this movie is the side characters are just as fun as the main characters. There’s all these side heroes and villains that are meant to be henchmen. But there’s always something about them that makes them pop and stand out. Whether that’s their design, their name, or something that they do that makes you enjoy them as characters. Our lead guy, Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man is fun in this role. He’s having to play two different characters in the film; one is Adam who is this guy that’s trying to get home after being sent away. Then as he transitions into hero, into He-Man and must stop Skeletor, you buy him as well. The first thing that I saw him in was The Idea of You with Anne Hathaway in 2024. He’s very skinny and scrawny in that film, and you watch this film and he’s jacked and clearly went to the gym to get prepped for this role. The fun one here a lot of people are going to be talking about is Jared Leto as Skeletor. The internet has been very vocal about not being the biggest Jared Leto fans. Fair enough, but he’s fun in this movie. I saw some early reviews comparing his performance to Jack Sparrow. And I think that’s a good comparison. Skeletor is not meant to be super serious and dark, he’s meant to be more fun and lighthearted. Leto is clearly having so much fun in this role, and it’s one of his better performances. To which I don’t know what says that a good Jared Leto performance is one where you can’t see his face, only his voice. However you want to take it, Leto is fun in this movie.
I’ve been using the word fun a lot in this review, and fun is the perfect word to describe this movie. It is extremely high energy from beginning to end, and it doesn’t really stop until the credits roll. The movie starts off with this 10–15-minute prologue that’s filled with action and jokes, and setting everything up. From there, it’s a non-stop streak of jokes and funny sight gags. The rate per minute that jokes are dropping in this movie is insane, where it feels like there’s multiple jokes dropping in about 60 seconds. Some of the jokes are funny, and we’ll talk more about them later, but my audience was laughing aloud from beginning to end. Again, some of the early reviews have compared this film to Thor: Ragnarok in terms of the humor and the tone. That’s a good comparison for this film. I’m somebody that’s a major fan of Ragnarok, the humor, and the tone. Because that movie is so silly and over the top, there are some people that are just annoyed by it and think it’s too much. I think people’s opinions on this movie is going to depend on how much you like or don’t like Ragnarok. This movie, to me, was never boring. It moved at a nice pace where there weren’t too long gaps between action set pieces, and when the action wasn’t taking place there were plenty of funny sight gags and jokes to keep you entertained.
Going back to what I just said, but the film embraces the cheesiness and goofiness of the ‘80 cartoon very well. I’m saying that as somebody who has never seen a single episode of the tv show, but I’ve seen clips and the memes, and the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously. The movie knows that it’s stupid and ridiculous, and it fully embraces the ‘80sness of the tv show. There’s something really refreshing with getting a movie like this, that’s not afraid to be silly and silly. The creative team behind this movie weren’t trying to modernize the film for a 2026 audience, they were fully adapting the tv show with love and appreciation for what made that tv show connect with ‘80s audiences. That’s another reason as to why the comparison to Ragnarok has been made is that for better or for worse, the film embraces the cheesiness and stupidness that comes from adapting a guy with blonde hair, a sword, and a loin cloth battling an evil skeleton.
Finally, the film does have some nice world building that creates this world that you want to explore more of. Without spoiling anything, the movie does set up a sequel and directions for another film to go. We’ll talk about my issues later with the film, I’m not crazy about the film. But assuming this movie does well at the box office (which I don’t think it is), I would be totally done for a sequel because the film does sets up this world that has multiple locations in it and you feel like you can explore this world and meet all of the different and new creatures in different and new environments. There’s all this lore and backstory proved that as well could expand this world and tell stories for more sequels.
The Bad
My biggest issue with the film goes against a lot of what I said in the positives. I mentioned the film is very vibrant, fun, and that it’s never boring. I stand by all of that, but I feel like the fact that it is so high energy with the humor and the fun, it means that it can be a bit much at points. I praised the rate per minute that jokes are dropping in this film, and I like that about the movie. Because the film is throwing so many jokes at the screen, it means that a good part of the jokes doesn’t fully land the way the creators thought they would. The ultimate example of the jokes not fully landing, is there’s multiple sexual innuendos in the film that come out of nowhere (pun not intended). I don’t mind putting adult jokes in movies like this, and I don’t think younger audiences will be able to notice them. But to the older audiences that can notice the jokes, it feels distracting from a family friendly film. Plus, there’s no wit to the joke. It’s just a character delivering a line that either sounds different or it’s just a very weird thing for a character to say at that specific moment in time. It feels like the creative team had all of these joke ideas that they wanted to throw into the film, but they weren’t told no by the studio and lacked self-restraint from balancing what’s a good joke and what’s going too far.
Somewhat connected to that, the film can have some tone issues as I felt like the film didn’t really know what it wanted to be. It has the scope, scale, and size and the character arcs to be a powerful adventure with a clear hero’s journey character arc to becoming He-Man. But the film also has the tone and vibe to be a parody of He-Man. I know that contradicts what I said earlier about the film embracing the cheesiness of the cartoon. But I think the over-reliance on jokes and fun vibes undermines some of the drama and specific moments in the film. So, like certain moments of seeing He-Man become this hero and be victorious are undermined by a joke by Skeletor, or you have a moment with Skeletor that’s meant to be villainous and scary, but it’s undercut by a joke. That’s frustrating when you have a movie that has all the right pieces to be a real crowd-pleasing blockbuster. You have a clear threat and a clear character for our main character as well as some of the other characters. But it feels more so like a parody of He-Man and Masters of the Universe rather than finding a great movie to tell a He-Man story.
Finally, Allison Brie as Evil-Lynn didn’t work at all. In a sense, she fits the movie she’s in. She’s trying to give this campy silly performance, but she’s not able to match the campiness that everybody is doing. It feels very distracting and I didn’t buy into her or her character. Whenever the character would deliver a joke, it would be a joke that wouldn’t land because the delivery of the jokes wasn’t there. Once again, they set up the pieces for her to have a character arc in the film. But the film doesn’t allow that character arc to happen because it’s focused on doing a joke or a sight gag.
Final Thoughts: In general, Masters of the Universe is a fun time at the movies. It’s fun and vibrant, and whether that’s good or bad depends on the person. For me, I thought the film was never boring, and it had characters and actors that I liked. But overall, the film’s over-reliance on the jokes and fun vibes felt so distracting and at a certain point in time, became more exhausting than overall fun and entertaining. I’m very curious to see how well this movie does with audiences. I can see a lot of people loving this movie, but I can also see a lot of people being frustrated like me with the film.
The Score: 8.1/10 (B-)
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