To this day, I still remember the feeling of disappointment of leaving a Jerry Lewis movie theater after my mom took me to see the 1987 Masters of the Universe film. Let down by how most of the film was on earth, why Courtney Cox felt like the main character, Dolph Lundgren not getting to do much, and the real kicker – no Orko. Where was my guy? And no Battle Cat. Low-key, this might’ve made me lose more interest in He-Man than anything from that point. Now, almost forty years later, Amazon MGM is taking a chance at giving the fans of He-Man, Skeletor, and Orko the movie screen they’ve always wanted. Even if most of the fans are middle-aged. This new Masters of the Universe film is helmed by Travis Knight, the director of Kubo and the Two Strings and Bumblebee, who seems suited pretty well for this challenge.
Idris Elba, Nicholas Galitzine and Camila Mendes star in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE © 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC
The film is trying to work for two audiences: He-Man fans and people who just want to see a fun movie. It starts with young Prince Adam, played by Artie Wilkinson-Hunt on Eternia, as a child trying to live up to his father, King Randor’s (James Purefoy) expectations of him. Being a small and, I guess, softer boy, he’s having a hard time living up to those expectations, and training with Man-at-Arms (Idris Elba) is hard on him. Wilkinson-Hunt does a great job here playing Adam as a kid who just wants to be a kid and not be this strong man already for his father. Everything is turned upside down when Skeletor and his forces attack Eternia, causing Adam to escape in a portal to Earth, where he spends years in a regular human life, dreaming of a way to get back home.
When Adam is an adult, Nicholas Galitzine takes over as the star and brings a good amount of humor and likability to Adam. The film uses the leisurely and usually over-his-head nature of Prince Adam in the old cartoon onto a character who feels unfulfilled in his life. In this version, Adam lives in his nostalgia and the heroes of his childhood. Adam is essentially an avatar of the OG He-Man fan watching this movie. It also works with the ideas of masculinity, with Adam trying to figure out how he fits into either world of Earth or Eternia and what it is to be a “man”. While it’s not subtle or maybe even sophisticated, it’s pretty successful at what it’s trying to accomplish.
Jared Leto stars in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
Copyright: © 2026 Amazon MGM Studios Content Services LLC
The film quickly focuses on a core group, with us meeting Camila Mendes as Teela. The character is introduced Teela early on in the prologue with a younger version played by Eire Farrell, and truly takes shape as the badass action hero we know once Mendes gets on screen. Just like in the classic show, when Adam is not He-Man he is very much a damsel in distress as Teela has to take the lead. The two actors work well together as an action-comedy duo, but once Idris Elba is added as Man-At-Arms, the cast chemistry finds itself with a great bit of balance with these two young heroes and this wise older guy trying to get his groove back. Elba is always entertaining as the gruff, heroic leader, but he gets to do some amazing character stuff with Man-At-Arms, having one of the better arcs in the film.
Kristin Wiig voices Roboto but the character look so different than what you’d expect. I had to look it up after the film was over. She does a good sarcastic robot here, very much in the vein of K-2SO in Star Wars and Marvin in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So while I didn’t know who she was, the character was a good member of the group in all the cast dynamics. Alison Brie plays Evil-Lyn, the evil sorceress who is Skeletor’s right-hand. She looks to have a great time playing this bad guy character, and she does get some very short moments of good facial acting. She doesn’t get to shine with action in her fight scene with Mendes, though I feel they both deserved a bit better on that.
Nicholas Galitzine stars as He-Man in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE..
And while it’s tough to say this, Jared Leto is pretty excellent here as Skeletor. While we don’t see him outside of the suit, he looks like the blue sculpted body and CG face. The Masters of the Universe film plays into all the iconic elements of the character from the ’80s cartoon from his penchant for alliterative loquacity and his overeagerness to to finding new ways to demean and terrorize his henchmen and followers. The filmmakers tap into how Skeletor is used in memes while also keeping him a threatening and dangerous villain. He’s one of my favorite elements form the film. The other henchmen like Tri-Klops, Beast Man, Trap Jaw, and Spikor get some spotlight, but only Trap Jaw gets to be a fully realized character.
The craft departments of this film were the other standouts of this movie. While the environments are fairly bland as a space fantasy generic world, the amount of work that went into accurately adapting the characters, not only from the cartoon but more so the toys, was pretty amazing. The makeup and costumes look terrific on the screen, along with the effects bringing these characters’ abilities to life. It does scratch a very specific nostalgic itch for me. This Masters of the Universe film isn’t perfect as it goes between comedy, sincerity, and fantasy movie-like tones and switches at a moment’s notice. While many will use Guardians of the Galaxy as a comparison, but it’s not as successful in terms of the balance of the tones along with the story.
Camila Mendes stars as ‘Teela’ in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.
Masters of the Universe isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot better than I expected. It was very entertaining, and it does right by He-Man and should make fans happy. I think it will do well with audiences unfamiliar with He-Man as well. Amazon MGM could be at the start of making some good crowd-pleasing movies, and Mattel has a good follow-up to their massive Barbie. You will probably enjoy the Power displayed here.
