By Michael Marano

Director Travis Knight’s self-aware reboot turns Reagan-era toy marketing into a surprisingly sharp, character-driven comedy about power, nostalgia, and growing up.

Masters of the Universe, directed by Travis Knight. Screening is screening at multiple theaters in the Boston area. Wide theatrical release will begin on June 5.

Nicholas Galitzine in Masters of the Universe. Photo: Giles Keyte/Amazon MGM Studios

Even the product placements are funny.

Back in the 1980s, beloved animated TV shows like GI Joe, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, JEM and the Holograms, and, of course,  Masters of the Universe were created by toy companies to sell toys. Thanks to Unca Ronnie Reagan’s deregulations, corporations could create “product-led” TV shows. No longer were toy lines based on popular TV shows, but vice versa.

Given the franchise’s deeply embedded crass and cynical commercialism, it comes as no surprise that the new Masters of the Universe film features show-stopping product placements—from Amazon (the studio behind it), Mattel (the IP’s originator), and Nike (director Travis Knight is the son of founder Phil Knight). But the product placements are done with wit and nudge-in-the-ribs self-awareness. The people making this movie know it’s based on an IP that started as a half-hour product placement, and they know that nostalgia for those Reagan-era product placements is going to be the main economic driver that’ll get sagging Gen X butts in seats to see it. They’re leaning into the crude merchandising that defines both their economic and cultural legacy—and inviting you to share in the joke. It’s kinda like when The Sex Pistols admitted they were only in it for “the filthy lucre.”

It’s this “have your cake and eat it, too” aesthetic that makes Masters of the Universe such a gleefully dumb, knee-slapping good time at the movies.  The purists, incels, manosphere geldings, self-described “He-Men” and “anti-woke” crowd will hate it, because they won’t get the good-natured humor poking fun at the very stuff they’re mad at. So fuck ’em… they don’t deserve any cake.

Masters of the Universe is a “quarter-life crisis” movie, about a guy named Adam slogging through his 20s in Oklahoma City who has not one bit of his shit together, because he’s the exiled prince of a magical kingdom on a magical planet where there are swords, sorcery, dragons, monsters, talking green tigers, and cool stuff like that. Problem is, even before his exile, Adam was a real weenie. Be it training as a young warrior, dating at a steakhouse, working a crap job in HR, having a slacker roommate, or getting “friend-zoned,” Adam faceplants. “Cringe” is a tough row to hoe on Earth, but on two planets? Yee-Ouch!

Idris Elba donning the helmet as Man-At-Arms in Masters of the Universe. Photo: Giles Keyte/Amazon MGM Studio

Masters of the Universe toys with (get it?) the isolation, frustration, and general dead-end malaise a lot of Gen Z kids are feeling, and in a screwed-up way, it’s an interesting companion piece to Obsession. Adam has no power, and like so many self-described “alphas” in our culture, Adam needs a father figure so he can attain some power… literally “THE POWER!” to reclaim his place as champion of his home planet. Masters of the Universe could be a great bonding movie for Gen X dads who grew up with He-Man and their Gen Z offspring, a bit of familial Kumbaya-ing brought to you by Mattel… “It’s swell!!”

This set-up is fundamentally a character-driven issue, and I fully acknowledge the absurdity of calling a film that was created as a piece of IP management “character-driven,” but we live in absurd times. Contrast the central Gen Z, quarter-life crisis issue of Masters of the Universe with the utterly dead, and visually ugly mess that is another piece of IP management designed to sell toys out in theaters now, The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The Mandalorian and Grogu has no life in it, because it’s not “product-led,” it’s just product. Yeah,The Mandalorian and Grogu wants to sell you toys, but it’s just hunks of sausage ground out by the factory that Star Wars has become. Masters of the Universe has actual character arcs holding it together, so it can indulge in humor and satire as it goes about creating a sense of playfulness and self-awareness that The Mandalorian and Grogu can’t possibly attain. Yeah, Masters of the Universe wants to sell you toys and nostalgia, but it does so in a way that’s fun and doesn’t insult your intelligence. And when you consider that Mattel created the Masters of the Universe line because they realized they screwed the pooch in 1977 when they passed on licensing Star Wars toys, Masters succeeding where The Mandalorian fails is sweet revenge.

As with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Masters of the Universe is smart enough to lampoon and modernize the plastic IPs on which it’s based. That hint of parody allows the makers, writers, and cast of Masters of the Universe to have an absurd amount of amusement.

As Adam, Nicholas Galitzine does the best job playing a dweeb with superpowers since Christopher Reeve in 1978’s Superman. He’s exactly the kind of guy who’d make Hank Hill sigh, “That boy ain’t right!” But the way he taps into that dweebiness, turning it into a strength, is pretty remarkable. It compliments the goofy glee that backbones the movie. Idris Elba and Camila Mendes take playing Man at Arms and Teela just seriously enough to sell the sly winks they give the audience. No one should ever be allowed to have as much fun as Alison Brie is clearly having playing Evil-Lyn, and by God… Jared Leto is an absolute riot as Skeletor. Under all the CGI and latex, Leto gives sly nods to Alan Oppenheimer’s (vocal) performance as Skeletor in the old Masters of the Universe cartoon, infusing the old demon with an utterly delightful bitchiness.

You could argue that IP management is killing creativity and innovation in movies, TV, amusement park “experiences,” and just about every facet of our culture in this post-Disney reality. Masters of the Universe isn’t IP management, it’s IP unleashing. The powers that be at Mattel, maybe after Gerwig’s Barbie triumph, have let Knight and his crew off the hook, and the results, dare I say it? HAVE THE POWERRRRRRR! to give you a good time at the movies.

Oh, and by all means… stay through the very end of the credits.

Back in the 1980s, author, critic, and personal trainer Michael Marano used to play with He-Man and She-Ra action figures with his nieces and nephews.