FallLover

Would I recommend it? No, particularly for people with no experience with MOTU. It's a movie largely for fans (of He-Man, not She-Ra, despite the She-Ra teaser), very obviously designed as a thing for folks who already know what it is they're watching and would get all the references (versus, say, Barbie (2023), which has many references to Barbie history but is very easily engaged with even by someone who didn't collect any of the referenced dolls, let alone knows the company's history). It does explain plenty, but there's a layer of comprehension for a lot of stuff that you just need to know other lore for (e.g., Moss Man's powers are never explained). I'm sure there are folks who have no experience with MOTU who would like it. They'll just also miss a ton of what's in the movie because they don't get all the references, which is also a structural issue of the movie.

Another niggling problem is that, for all its flaws, the plot is somewhat similar to the plot of the 2021 MOTU animated series, Masters of the Universe: Revelation ("MOTURA"), and MOTURA does a better job with everything than MOTU 2026 does. And while being not as good as a previous iteration of the series is not precisely harsh criticism, it's part of why I was less forgiving of a deeply unnecessary live-action film that makes choices at times. Yes, I know about and have seen Masters of the Universe (1987) ("MOTU 1987"). I know there was a planned sequel (and this is not that). MOTU has just always been better animated (or as a comic).

Also, take everything here with some grains of salt: I've only seen the movie once. My opinion has changed with some time to think about it, but I do not have it available to rewatch and review. I don't know that I'd rewatch it at this point.

General things that were good:

The actors, by and large, did a decent job, despite what is, at best, a very bad script, and a lot of seemingly bad directing (which is odd, considering Director Travis Knight's credentials, but that might be why the movie is not as bad as it could be). I think this is most obvious with Nicholas Galitzine (adult Adam/He-Man). He does a pretty decent job in the role, and his fake American accent (he's British) is pretty decent. He also is adorable and looks very good in all his costumes, particularly his He-Man garb. Artie Wilkinson-Hunt (young Adam) also does an excellent job (he had like one line that doesn't come off well, but he's a kid, so he generally does fine).

Camila Mendes (Teela) did a neat job, as did Eire Farrell (young Teela). Kristen Wiig was also very good as Roboto. Johannes Haukur Johannesson (Fisto) was generally decent, and Jon Xue Zhang (Ram Man) was funny. Most everyone else of significance had few lines and their job was to stand around or be in fights, which they did fine with. Notably, James Wilkinson (Mekaneck) did an excellent job in that role. And Kojo Attah was a very intimidating looking Tri-Klops, but he has maybe 1-2 brief lines and doesn't do much other than stare at targets or fight, so judging his acting is hard (and unfortunately I imagine comparisons to Edi Gathegi's performance as Mister Terrific in Superman (2025) are going to be made, but the latter has way more screentime). Mekaneck is more impressive by how the movie dared to include him (he was not in MOTU 1987), properly, and he works, visually, on-screen. Outside his triangle eyes, he doesn't look goofy or anything, and works well in fights. That's probably in part due to Knight's work on Bumblebee, where that movie's crew really made the 3D mechanical creatures work well with the live-action actors.

Orko is in the film. Briefly. At the end. And he works fine. I don't know how well he'd have worked interacting with everyone, but he works for what we see of him. I did not miss him, and I enjoyed Roboto's inclusion as the snarky sidekick instead, even if she's basically just L3-37. MOTU 2026 Orko is better than Orko from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021), but that is an extremely low bar. Heck, MOTURA Orko made me cry. That's impressive. Did not happen here, but he was in too little for that to happen anyway.

The score was excellent, and I don't just mean the funny use of Princes of the Universe. Regularly in the film I was distracted by how good the score was, not just because I was trying to not pay attention to the bad writing or weird acting/direction (which was frequent) but because the music was that enjoyable. Honestly, the music is the best part of this film, vying with how attractive Galitzine looks in that loincloth. I suppose it's not surprising, since Composer Daniel Pemberton worked on both Spider-Verse movies and the Birds of Prey movie, all of which were notable for great scores/soundtracks.

Most any time He-Man is actually being He-Man and lifting things or punching or showing he's strong is generally quite good (ignoring the final part of the last battle with Skeletor, which I'll get to). It is in fact fun to see He-Man being He-Man in the MOTU film starring He-Man (I seem to recall this was another issue MOTU 1987 had: too little time of He-Man being He-Man, but again, I've only seen that once, and have even less of a desire to rewatch it). It's unfortunate it happens with relative rarity in MOTU 2026 and we don't even get him showing how good he is at being a friend and negotiator as recompense, because that whole whatever collapses on itself and time is instead spent focusing on his romance with a woman he's known all of a handful of hours and last knew as a 10-year-old. Adam in all versions of the story is meant to be a decent human being who cares about people. And we really do not see that at all. He's mostly showboating while high on adrenaline, angry, awkwardly flirting with Teela, or otherwise being useless. The narrative tries to sell most of his nonsense as valuable despite not generally being that way because that's how these stories go. It's unfortunate because while, again, I only saw Bumblebee once, I seem to recall it had decent character work, but that's not really present all that much here. Kubo and the Two Strings (also directed by Knight) also had a stronger, "Young character does more with their superpowers, overdoes it, learns" plotline.

But back to the good: I am curious to see what a She-Ra movie with this crew would be like. I think this crew might be overconfident in including the She-Ra teaser given the state of everything, but I am intrigued at the planned possibility and wondering how much more it'll be a Wonder Woman knock-off than MOTU 2026 is.

And the not so great:

This is truly not a highlight performance for Morena Baccarin (the Sorceress), Idris Elba (Man-At-Arms), or Alison Brie (Evil-Lyn), though Brie did a decent enough job, and Baccarin and Elba are not terrible, especially when the Sorceress is talking to Adam while Adam is dead/dying. Mostly the actors, in general, are failed by the very bad script, and the script is most obviously bad for the Sorceress and Duncan. Duncan's introduction, for instance, is very stupid. His speech to the trainees is just bad all around, even for generic "bad cop" trainee speak/a dumbed down version of his lines in Pacific Rim. His best moments are with both Adams, and they have good chemistry. But he just got a bad script (which is very odd, considering how well Beetle works in Kubo and the Two Strings). And whenever Baccarin is actually on-screen, the Sorceress costume... I don't know, whatever direction she was given was bad (especially when we first see her and she's... buffeting the power sword? For some reason? You can see it in at least one of the trailers, and it is not given more context in the movie). The dream sequence works because she talks mostly as a CGI bird. And she's a good voice actor (this is not her first role with that, she was, among many other things, Black Canary in the Timmverse Justice League).

And the elephant in the room, Jared Leto, who, for I assume money reasons or he knows somebody, plays Skeletor. He neither adds nor particularly takes away from anything in this film (largely because I think it is directing/writing issues that cause most of the issues I would otherwise attribute to his presence). His voice is heavily modulated so it doesn't really sound like him (though I'll admit, despite seeing him in multiple movies at this point, I would not recognize either his face or voice if I saw him, because he's that unremarkable), and his lines end up just being massively overdone and kind of silly. He has one good line in his film (the one where he's talking about Adam's dick rather salaciously), and that's it. Most of what is good about his role has nothing to do with him, but more to do with the costuming, writing, and sets. If I had one positive thing to say about his presence in the film, other than that incredible single line, it's that he portrays a fascist very well: an unhinged crybaby and entitled little monster who will happily hurt and destroy anyone for more cookies from the cookie jar. MOTU 2026 Skeletor is more intelligent than the average fascist, though (not that he's brilliant, but they're that unintelligent).

A lot of the extras are unfortunately just standing around until they have to do something. It's painfully obvious and not I think a criticism of their acting so much as the messy writing and directing (I don't remember Bumblebee having this problem, but I admit I don't care as much about Transformers). The first fight in Snake Mountain involves a bunch of the higher-up thugs standing in place, watching lower underlings swarm Adam, until, eventually, the higher-ups join in. Why? I don't know. But that happens a lot in the film. Another noted example is when Marlena and young!Adam are allowed to just... flee. Past Skeletor's guards.

The writing and directing are a mess. That was expected for this movie (though Knight and David Callaham, who is one of the credited screenplay writers, both have experience working on well-written films) but it's painful to see in action. The best that can be said of either is that, at least in my opinion, this is better than MOTU 1987, and makes a lot more sense to outsiders, because it actually does try, to a degree, to explain things, and make the characters and their relationships make sense to the audience. I still don't know how well that would work for true newcomers given the whole "did you get that reference" aspect of most of this movie, but it's there, I guess? Even as a fan who grew up with the series (and a lot of media from the 60s-80s), MOTU 1987 is largely an incomprehensible mess. A problem is that by being written largely for existing fans, it does things in the plot that make no narrative sense. There are also many dropped plot threads, and things that are presented in a way that makes you feel like it's concluding an arc, but really isn't. Perhaps this is the fault of cutting, but it happened so many times it got frustrating.

Lastly, I do not at all understand the architecture of Eternos. Just very, very weird and more designed for movie combat than a place that people live in. People put a lot of work into the fantasy sets, and I think Snake Mountain in particular looks fine. But Eternos is just... weird. I forget where I saw it (I think in an interview about designing sets for Buffy the Vampire Slayer?), but there was some set director somewhere who talked about navigating designing a set that's easy to shoot a show/movie in, whether it's placing equipment and/or highlighting the actors doing things, versus designing a set that looks like an actual place people would go to. And too much of the former makes it hard for an audience to accept the reality of the fiction, but too much of the latter makes scenes less impactful. Eternos, by and large, does not look like a place people live and work in, and a sane person with their level of technology would design for any reason. It looks like something designed for movie fights. In fact, I can't think of any place in this story that has a particular sense of place or interest or attachment to it. Snake Mountain is the most... distinct set? I guess? Earth has no value to the narrative so it's purely there for humor and field trip purposes. The maybe Andreenos location just felt like a rip-off of any particular location in Star Wars and we get brief glimpses of people living there, but that's kind of it. The forest is pretty, I guess, but brief. And that's... it?

Film rundown:

I'll try to be as movie chronological as I can, but I will probably jump around because of the nature of the thing.

The training sequence, despite Man-At-Arms' very dumb speech, is fine (I would expect better from someone who wrote Spider-Man: Across the Universe, but maybe Callaham didn't write the good training bits?). Duncan has a decent rapport with Randor, though I think it could be better, since they're supposed to be friends and comrades, but feel more like a boss with his underling. That's also an interesting dynamic, that the movie does nothing with, because Duncan's character is given little depth in that direction, and which could have been explored if the whole pointless sent to Earth plot didn't happen. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe 2002 ("HMOTU 2002") handled their dynamic a lot better (you near instantly see the bond between these two men and care about them as a result, because it's a generic comrades in arms thing and that speaks to most audiences).

Also, unfortunately, Randor's characterization is... odd. Perhaps marked by its absence and his literal absence from the narrative. He's kind of portrayed differently in every version of MOTU, from foppish and incompetent to seasoned soldier to someone with secrets and a guilty conscience. I don't recall a version of him who would pull an actual sword on his 10-year-old son and force him into a fight (though, depending on the version of the narrative, his relationship with Keldor does raise questions there). That seems unusually harsh for him, though it does run with the general theme of this being a gritty version of Eternia where people can die, brutally, and that combat is not a game (and also, based on the end-credits teaser, that one of his children was kidnapped near birth). It just seems... odd, for Randor. And this is basically all of his character that we get until right before he dies. He's a good fighter (as shown by his last stand before he's captured by Skeletor), overly harsh on his son, distant from his subjects, and maybe has regrets at his death, which would make sense after everything. His dying words frame it as his actions towards young Adam being out of fear: the world was too big for small Adam, and Randor wanted to prepare him for it (maybe sort of justified by what happened to Adora? Though we're not told that in the film). That's fine as a harsh, distant father narrative. It's just wonky and we get too little of him to work with. He's there, frustrating, Adam barely thinks actual things about him or tries to change who he is in all 15 years of his time on Earth, and then he attempts to prove he's changed just because, I guess, he's He-Man now, in time to say goodbye to Randor after leading to his death). And we get too little of his relationships with Marlena or Duncan to work with from other angles.

Marlena has no character. She's worried about Adam, about her husband, about Eternia... and that's kind of it. We get nothing about her being an astronaut from Earth, questions about how Adam was raised, anything. She comforts Adam when they're imprisoned together, but it's Duncan who has the heart-to-heart with Adam, not Marlena.

Teela's relationship with Adam, as children, is fine. The child actors do a decent enough job.

Skeletor is... just a mess all around. Power for power's sake is fine as a villain's drive. It's what you see a lot with real-life fascists and powerful people who truly have no other driving force in their life. They know nothing else. In that sense, I don't think it's wrong that we don't get more of an explanation of Skeletor's motivations, beyond a brief chat with Evil-Lynn about his fears of losing everything if he doesn't get the power sword's power. Plenty of MOTU stories have explored this, and maybe a sequel would, too. Presumably he's afraid of Hordak, but given we don't know if a sequel is happening, they kept that out of the narrative as much as possible. A problem is that even Adam questions this narrative, that there has to be more to it than just, "He's evil." To which Teela says, "He has a skull for a face." Which is referenced by Orko at the end of the film because I guess someone on the crew really liked that joke. Not all evil people look "evil", Teela and Orko, if someone wanted to make a Nazi reference here, they were doing a bad job of it. But anyway, Adam forgets about this until the climax with the stupid and undeveloped "cycle" thing and that's almost immediately dropped.

There's a plot in HMOTU 2002 where the Masters figure out how to place a device on Skeletor that zaps him whenever he thinks or does evil things (S1E11: Turnabout). The idea of a "good" Skeletor possibility is also explored a little in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) ("HMOTU 1983"), with questions of if Skeletor is capable of not being evil. The problem is MOTU 2026 tries to treat a new-old problem like we're in the middle of a TV show that's been running for 10+ episodes, and this is worse because it's a central part of MOTU 2026 that isn't handled well at all.

At the start of HMOTU 1983, He-Man and Skeletor are experienced enemies who've been fighting off and on for a while. Skeletor does something bad, gets defeated by the Masters, and leaves to fight another day. In HMOTU 2002, S1E11, the Masters and Skeletor have also been fighting for some time, and the anti-evil solution makes sense to try to deal with the problem (it's still a dumb solution for various reasons, but it makes some logical sense for a children's TV show). That is not the case in MOTU 2026. Skeletor is implied to have been an issue at some point in the past, but for how long, we have no idea. Randor just "forgot" about him (which makes little sense for a Randor so charged for attack that he pulls a sword on his own son). He takes over Eternia for 15 years, keeps prisoners, torments and murders his underlings, and is stated to have executed thousands of people during his reign. We see him kill many, including his personally murdering Moss Man. By the time Adam says to Skeletor, "Let's end this cycle" or whatever, this is the second time he's faced Skeletor in combat. I guess technically the third if you count like 5-10 minutes prior, when Skeletor murdered him. Four if you count the time Adam ran off with Marlena to escape the invasion, leaving Randor alone to face Skeletor. There is no cycle, and Skeletor has done far more than be simply irritating. Yes, they keep fighting each other, but it's not a case of, "Skeletor keeps feeling compelled to fight me to take the power, I beat him, he comes back to try again, nothing really changes." It's a case of, Skeletor is a fascist dictator who has murdered massive numbers of people, forced others to be his slaves, and terrified people into hiding from him to escape enslavement and murder, while holding Adam's parents and cat hostage and leading to Adam's father's death. Negotiation is possible in a lot of cases. But it's very different to negotiate with a guy who shows up to mess up your yard every Tuesday and a guy who's murdered your entire neighborhood and taken over the country. People who have seen at least one animated series or read some MOTU comics know why this is in here, sort of. Because they, along with everyone else, are confused why Adam is even having this conversation.

And Adam is also a giant mess. That's not bad for a hero origin story, but it's not one this movie handles well at all. Narratively, the Sorceress states she chose Adam - young Adam - as a vessel for the power because of his empathy and compassion, and that this goes against previous users of the power, who did so for power's sake. There is little evidence of empathy and compassion in young Adam (or adult Adam, honestly). That's not to say he's evil, but we do not really see much of him to see who he is as a person, other than he dislikes fighting (which isn't surprising when we learn what he went through in training). We also don't really see much of empathy and compassion from Adam leading up to the conversation in the climax. Interactions we see with him:

He tells a deranged story to a woman he mostly ignores to monologue at her while on a date, and has no ability to understand why she wouldn't enjoy being monologued at.

He likes drawing pictures of fighters. And weapons. And has no idea why, in modern America with its history of mass shootings, including at the office, his coworkers (particularly his coworkers of color) might be irked by a buff white guy googling weapons on company time.

He has a standoffish but seemingly close relationship with his roommate, whom he ultimately drags to Eternia to prove he wasn't insane. I get the idea of years of being told you have mental health problems and bad memory, but it's more... vengeful? Than compassionate?

At his job we see one interaction he has with a client, which seems to not go well, due in part to his not listening to them talk. He has one interaction with his team, at a meeting he's bored to death at. His interaction with his boss is negative, and he's heavily distracted, and we learn he hates one of his bothersome coworkers. We are told, repeatedly, that he's good at his job, but we never actually see it. There's maybe something going on about how people who work at HR are not precisely good at caring for other people, and only see other humans as names on a list rather than individuals with lives, and ultimately they work for the company (e.g., Adam works for the monarchy). I don't really know. It's not handled well if it's there. I frankly don't even know what he actually is HR for so the plot felt random, more designed as a way for Skeletor to ask, "What even is this?" late in the film.

He repeatedly gives people nicknames (which they repeatedly hate and mock). The only time he properly introduces himself and asks someone's name is when he talks to Roboto. Despite the fact that a running gag is he doesn't know anyone's name (other than Duncan and Teela), but we are told people like him: he never asks nor is given people's names. The conclusion of this is that the Masters accept his "bad" nicknames. Just because it's getting to the movie climax, I guess.

Adam is introduced to the Masters on the run on his return to Eternia, a group of rebels hiding out and apparently working together, seemingly for some time. Long enough to stay out of prison and not dead, anyway. After they are imprisoned in Snake Mountain, Adam gathers them together for a group escape session discussion or whatever. Here he (badly) explains the "revolutionary" idea... of working together. He also badly demonstrates that he knows little and has learned nothing of any of these people, repeating incorrect information about them that he had earlier in the film. The difference being, now he knows Dian's name. The important plan here is destroy the wall around the gate. That's it. That was literally all that needed to be explained. "Let's break the wall and we can break out and steal some ships and go fly to Eternos to beat Skeletor for good". Barely any of that made it into the otherwise entirely pointless scene that was meant to convince us these people had good reason to trust Adam as a leader.

He talks to Roboto kindly, but still gets her to carry Duncan out of the cell when she explicitly stated her boundary that she wouldn't be a servant.

He ignores Teela's advice about facing Skeletor (admittedly to rescue his parents). A choice that gets her and Duncan captured, and leads to Randor's death.

In short, he is extremely ignorant in regard to social niceties that generally just demonstrate he's awkward and self-centered, not that he's kind, and is rude to just about everyone he interacts with, and doesn't really display compassion or empathy much at all. He wants an alternative to beating Skeletor to death or fighting in general, but fails both times he attempts to talk. Adam murders very many people in the story and rips a prosthetic off a disabled man, the latter of which is about the only thing he feels remorse about.

The end result of this is that every time he proposes alternatives to violence, he is met with confusion and exasperation for his naivete. The one exception to his being wrong in this and the "just fight" party being correct is when he talks to Roboto, which, again, is a bit messy. Ultimately, his talking to her is good: she helps save the day, and mends a relationship with Duncan. But it's a minor part of the narrative: the bigger part of this story is how she and Duncan sort of work things out. You could argue that any kindness is good kindness, and that's good. But it's not necessarily a notable part of him, and every other instance of his trying for goodness over brutality shows him as a fool, and not "it's worth it to try even if it fails", but rather "you didn't think that much before trying". If you want to editorialize and go with Adam's general characterization throughout each series, the Sorceress might be able to see that while Adam will fight when necessary, he does not generally seek power for power's sake (unlike Skeletor). He will defend his home and the people he cares about, but he doesn't harm those not attacking him (except his father) and is happy to lay down his arms when it's not necessary. He is also willing (at times) to listen to other people and work as a team, rather than needing to be the one in charge and taking all the glory and spoils. A very pointed example of this is in the beginning of HMOTU 2002, when Adam goes back to Grayskull to obtain the power, so he can go out and fight Skeletor's forces properly. Another example is Adam's characterization in MOTURA. Adam in his origin doesn't need to be a saint or have all the answers. But we could have more than this.

Also, Adam in most every storyline is raised as a prince, so he's spoiled. Adam in MOTU 2026 was a 10-year-old orphan in the USA and presumably went through the foster system, and seemingly got to the point where he could hold down one office job and share rent with just one roommate in the city. How did that affect him? Because he was not a prince. This was actually addressed in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2013), when his memory was erased. He grew more active when he was a huntsman out in the woods with his father. He was a different person, not a spoiled brat. MOTU 2026 does absolutely nothing with this, I guess because the assumption was he never grew out of being a prince for 10 years of his life, even though he spent 15 very formative years not being a prince?

So what makes Adam a good hero worthy of the power? That he believes in teamwork? I guess? I don't know how the Sorceress knew that when he was 10 (and the most notable thing we see him doing is arguing with Teela while she beats him, then dancing in front of her, or listening to Duncan, sometimes). She should have the power to see the future, but again... here's what his future is. How does anything we see in this movie prove he'd be a good hero? "It'll be in the next movie", okay but what about this movie? What about anything here is meant to show the conclusion of that narrative arc, or even a "first steps" point?

I also have to question what the central narrative theme of this is, because it seems to me that there's something about being true to yourself, not what others want you to be... but in the end, Adam does become someone other than he is. He has to. So the central narrative theme either doesn't make sense or becomes, "If you're considered decent enough by the right people, force is fine whenever you choose to use it." Theodore Roosevelt isn't the best person to emulate. Adam spends most of the movie being nostalgic for a world he didn't understand, falsely attempts to show that he's better than that, despite spending no time actually trying to improve, and otherwise has no character other than being useless.

The Sorceress being able to create portals is fine? In the sense that it's a thing she can do in most versions of the narrative, and she does it for Adora, anyway. We kind of get a have your cake and eat it too situation where the Sorceress can create portals, but Teela rescues Adam with a spaceship. So... sort of a reference to Marlena's ship? Kind of?

The Earth thing does nothing for the story other than tons of nostalgia bait stories involve this fish out of water narrative (e.g., Enchanted, The Smurfs) with "fantasy character ends up in modern America", so why not this too? None of the people here matter. Adam doesn't use any of the lessons here for anything. Allegedly, he already had his ethics when he was 10 and the Sorceress thought he was a good vessel for the power, so he seemingly didn't learn anything on Earth. At least not anything we're shown (e.g., his foster parents, if he had any, or anything he learned from friends or school). I guess that one meeting we see that he hated somehow got used for the prison meet-up in Snake Mountain, but that's a reach. Earth is largely not used as a setting except for him to briefly be stuck there, seemingly not be good at working out, and then be rescued by Teela as they flee Beast Man. The rebels didn't do anything in the 15 years the sword was hidden, other than grow a bit older and eke out a miserable existence. Virtually all the adults still look the same 15 years later (but Duncan is a washed-up drunk). It's like nothing changed.

Having Dolph Lundgren, who played He-Man in MOTU 1987, show up to give Adam "advice" in the gym, was a cute reference. It's a nice acknowledgement to the 1987 film.

Unfortunately a lot of the film is that.

In the movie, the advice isn't useful and Adam doesn't understand it. So this has no bearing on the story. I'm also confused why Adam is as buff as he is if he doesn't know how to work out. Presumably he attends this gym semi-regularly, but he doesn't know anyone to train with? He doesn't have a routine? Yes, Adam is usually shown to be a wimp who's not good at fighting and doesn't do much to maintain his buff physique (though at least in HMOTU 2002 and MOTURA, he's shown as notably skinny as Adam, but buff as He-Man), but this is just sort of weird. You don't get a physique like that without doing something. Just eating tons of food does not get you looking like that.

Adam wears a pink shirt for a large portion of the film. This is a reference to his original civilian clothes in HMOTU 1983, which included a pink vest.

I think MOTU 2026's updated modern Earth clothes work quite well. He looks good in the shirt.

I am a bit take it or leave it with the HR office's "inclusivity", which sort of deals with pinkwashing. Outside Skeletor being openly thirsty for He-Man, it's the queerest the story gets (other than Adam's comments about not being what his father wanted and trying to be something he's not, which could be relatable to a queer person trying to remain closeted due to societal pressure), and it's treated a bit as a joke, while not really addressed in any other fashion, so I struggle to see its presence as a good thing. Yay, even marginalized people can be villains? For awkwardly pointing out that a buff white guy googling weapons on company time is concerning??

The story largely presents Adam as a dumbass (and overgrown manchild). He is incapable of understanding why apparent strangers (we don't know his relationship with the woman at the start of the film: is this a first date or have they been in a relationship for a while?) do not like listening to his outlandish stories. He also cannot understand basic instructions (I'm confused why he thought a guy who worked for his father is a "historic figure"), is visibly bad at his job, thought that giving his Earth driver's license to Fisto would prove his identity somehow as Prince Adam of Eternia (like proof of his "identity", okay fine, whatever), and the list goes on. Namely, in his asking most anyone in the Fright Zone (yes, cute MOTU reference) whether they have his sword in ways that are deeply weird and look like someone trying to buy or sell drugs or make hook-ups. He has the comment, "Everyone here looks like they might have a sword", which... why? Does he see if they're carrying a sword-like object? Because none of the people he talks to do.

The sword guy running into the shelving was pretty funny. And the Torak statue was a cute reference. He-Man was designed by Mark Taylor and originated as a similar hero named Torak. This was used as a jumping off point for what later was turned into He-Man.

There was a missed opportunity to have Adam arrested by the Postal Police, given the emphasis on his driving knocking over the post box. In fact I thought that's who arrested him, and maybe it was, given I didn't get a close-up look at their uniforms, but they looked largely just like normal police officers.

The Highlander reference was funny (though again, see Captain America), though I'm confused what the value of having the female cop not be able to make a similarly "funny" joke was? Oh, the guy is better at being nerdy than the woman is? lol much funny haha. You know how in the Barbie Movie, the suits are all guys who don't understand women? I think Mattel is trying and failing to say something again. Like they're cops here, who cares, but at least something was sort of being said with the CEOs. Nothing is being said here. Nothing good anyway. Literally the only value of the Highlander joke is when Princes of the Universe plays during the return to Grayskull. Because "Masters of the Universe", "Princes of the Universe", Adam is leader of the masters/prince of Eternos, you know? Highlander came out in 1986 and the show ran through much of the 90s? You get it? You get it? Do you get it?!?!

Beast Man gives us our Hulk/gorilla sequence. That's kind of it. Teela is fine here. That's the best that can be said. I think the movie could have done a better job of playing into Adam's frustration with not being believed, for years, and what damage that potentially did to his psyche. But it's mostly just played as a joke tying into him being not that intelligent and too naive.

Teela demonstrates her incompetence by easily being spotted by Tri-Klops and tracked to the super secret base. Yes, this kind of stuff happens in MOTU all the time. But it's hard to take Teela seriously as a very competent warrior when stuff like this happens. And while her frustration with Duncan is understandable, angling her as being The Competent One is less understandable with moments like this. She just comes off as verbally abusive. Again, a difficult relationship between Teela and Duncan related to issues with Randor and Adam was handled a lot better in MOTURA.

I like that Tri-Klops is also racebent (like Duncan). I wish we got more of him to see what this version of him is like. As is, he has barely any lines and we know nothing about his relationship with the other characters. Meanwhile, in HMOTU 2002, we got a lot of his relationship with Skeletor in particular. A movie is not a show and they stuffed a lot of characters into this, so I get why a story not focused on him didn't have a ton of him, but it was disappointing. And I think that any failure this movie has is going to be blamed on things like racebending Tri-Klops, Krass, and Duncan, and centering Teela and Evil-Lynn (much like the pushback on MOTURA, which centered Teela and Evil-Lynn).

Why does Skeletor sleep under a thin white sheet? Because he's a "corpse"? What purpose does this serve? I just do not get it at all.

It just really annoys me that the Masters are insulted by Adam giving them nicknames but at no point do they provide their actual names (which they have!), at no point does he ask them (while acknowledging he was 10 when he came up with the nicknames), and they just kind of end up proudly accepting the narratively disliked nicknames by the end of the story. The characters have names, just like Duncan and Adam have names, but they are not used in the story.

Alternatively, I think Dian's inclusion is nice. She's actually a character from the 1980s comic strips and served under Teela. So that's cool.

But it's fine that the Masters are incompetent, because the Masters have incompetent coworkers, like Teela, who leads Tri-Klops to them and has... power sword detection the other Masters don't, because they're evidently surprised she went off to find it? Is it her Sorceress abilities kicking in? Or did the Sorceress reach out to her? And Dian... locks Teela and Adam in a cell? For some reason? I truly don't understand this part.

I am juvenile and the fisting jokes were very funny. I was extremely happy they were there, just like when they showed up in MOTRA:

Trapjaw could have shot Adam down while he was naked and transforming. Anyone could have. No one does. This is a regular complaint about magical transformation sequences, something MOTRA took advantage of, which I thought was a lot of fun as a narrative conceit. That doesn't always have to be the way the situation is dealt with, but it's not touched on here at all. Twice. Because Skeletor could have shot him at the end, too, but doesn't.

It really bothers me how many people Adam murders without apparently caring. I get he was raised in a warrior culture - one he maybe rejects because he's compassionate or whatever - but he just murders like 10 or so people in the Trapjaw fight and that's you know... whatever? But he feels bad about Trapjaw's arm. And to be clear, I am not angry that the 80s toyline kids show 2026 made for adults movie has murder in it. Or that the heroes kill fascists. I am just confused how this gels with everything else in the narrative. HR people do not just murder people. Usually.

Skeletor could have shot down Teela's ship. Instead, he just watches it rise up and fly away extremely close to him. Why? I have no idea. Why did he let Marlena and Adam run off at the start of the movie? Why do his goons stand and watch as Adam fights the lower-level underlings at Snake Mountain? Why does Skeletor let Adam have his moment while Randor is dying instead of killing them both (and if it's to make them both suffer, why not emphasize it later, like I don't know, during the nightmare montage, have Adam relive essentially killing his father on repeat, like how Daniel Jackson relieved trying and failing to save his parents in Stargate SG-1)? Why does no one dismantle Roboto but rather throw her into the cell with the other humans? Who knows? Evil is incompetent and fascists need clear orders to do anything, which they do not have.

Moss Man's death was meaningless and I think just because people who make new versions of MOTU like killing Moss Man (he dies twice in MOTURA). As someone who loved him in HMOTU 2002, this was just weird. I assumed they'd bring him back somehow, but like a lot of things, they didn't bother. He's dead. And it's fine to have characters stay dead. But deaths should also mean something, especially for known characters. Moss Man, to my recollection, had no lines, and newcomers in the audience don't know who he is. He dies because MOTU fans care about him or are, I guess, meant to find it amusing he's dead again, or wonder if he'll come back. I don't want to say this movie is just badly recycled fanfiction of MOTURA, but after a certain point...

It's funny that Adam does nothing with the skycycle other than crash it into someone. He doesn't use it to fight. He just ends up throwing it at an enemy. I don't know that it's meant to be funny that way, but it is.

Just like Adam doesn't care about all the people he murders (and he gets rather good at murdering, as shown by the Snake Mountain fight), it bothers me that Duncan is not shown to have remorse about all the soldiers who died under his watch. He's a failure because he specifically didn't protect three people, but mostly because Trapjaw defeated him, not because his people were slaughtered and kidnapped by Skeletor, and he failed to stop it. I don't blame him for everything that happened. I just don't understand why this isn't a thing at all. I think part of it is how disconnected the Masters are from the average person. The Masters are many in number, largely voiceless, personality-less people. There are other people living around them, having lives, forming a city, such as it is, and thousands more murdered by Skeletor, and other people who celebrate in Eternia when it's rebuilt. But we don't know them. We don't know what their struggles were like while being ruled by Skeletor (other than potentially being slaughtered). We don't know what Teela went through in the past 15 years other than not learning how to avoid detection when it matters, apparently. The common people, like all the other soldiers Duncan trained, do not exist except in shots where you can show them standing around. So he is not upset about them.

The way Randor just stands in place while watching the ceiling slowly start to break apart and eventually collapse on top of him is just... why? He had so much opportunity to move and didn't.

I genuinely want to know how Skeletor wasn't able to activate the sword, and Evil-Lynn ultimately didn't do anything to help him, but somehow one or both of them were able to get Adam to deactivate his transformation. There's no evidence they threatened him (e.g., "We'll kill your comrades/your mother"), that he even knew how turn it off, or that dropping the sword or not being near it or being unconscious makes him lose the transformation (e.g., when he drops it in the forest and has to go find it). And yet.

It bothers me so much that Marlena has few lines in this movie and no value other than to look worried and shepherd Adam to the portal, despite opportunity. We have no sense of her as a character at all. She's a warrior, an explorer, a scientist (she worked at NASA!), a person. Adam loves her. But she's just there to be hugged. Nothing more. The best that can be said is she isn't fridged. The MOTURA reunion between Adam and his parents made me cry. Their inclusion in MOTU 2026 was just kind of pathetic. He had enough stability after falling into a lake somewhere when he was 10 to hold down a decent enough job and a nice apartment (with one person sharing rent) as an adult, and get really beefy. Other than missing his family, though, there's very little to work with here. And you know what's worse? There was clearly a cut of this film where Marlena says more! And why do I know that? Because it's in one of the trailers

Adam: Why did you send me away?

Marlena: I wanted you to be safe. So I sent you to a place that I knew they'd never find you. Earth.

It's not much and it's basically a rehash of what she says at the start of the film. But given this is clearly adult Adam talking, and was perhaps meant to take place in the prison scene in Snake Mountain, clearly there was something else here. Something that was cut for, what, the forced laughing scene at the end?

I actually think the conversation between Duncan and Adam is fine. It just seems pointless and should have been at least partially between Marlena and Adam, perhaps with Duncan involved, too, with Marlena maybe doing some scolding and telling the men to get their shit together. The film also wants to ape the line from Batman Begins where Thomas Wayne tells young Bruce, "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

The problem is the relationship really isn't here between Adam and his parents, or Adam and Duncan. You can kind of see the chemistry between Adam and Duncan, but narratively it just is not there. And chemistry is hard to create. But I think it's there more because Idris Elba is a good actor who plays good supportive father figures, and less because the movie is doing it well. The attempt to mimic what happened in Batman Begins just comes off as cheap and embarrassing, making up for nonexistent character building that isn't supported by the movie it's in.

Fisto telling Ram Man to give their enemies head or hell (I couldn't tell which) is funny. I would assume it was "head"? Based on the other dirty jokes? I'm not really sure, though. Unless the joke was just that he called the guy "Ram Man", which would be strange, since the characters embraced their nicknames so strongly in prison.

I appreciate Cringer rising above his fear and fighting Beast Man even when he's not powered up as Battle Cat. That's fun and interesting, especially since Beast Man should be able to control him. What I don't understand is where they went when Adam transformed, and, given the Battle Cat transformation is canon to this story universe, as Battle Cat is shown later in the film, why Battle Cat didn't transform during the climactic battle after Adam does?

It doesn't bother me that Duncan murders Trapjaw by sticking a grenade in the guy's mouth, though I'm confused why Trapjaw didn't fire at Duncan more from above with his attack chopper. What's funnier is that so much else happens in this movie that I keep forgetting Duncan did this. I do appreciate his relationship's conclusion with Roboto, though. Maybe my memory is wrong, though, because while yes, when she came out at the end I recognized she was Roboto (the design is similar to her original HMOTU 1983 design), and there are posters before her rebuild calling her Roboto, but it's my understanding her name was Susan? And this is never brought up again? But I can't find any record of this anywhere, so I'm not sure if I imagined it?

Evil-Lynn flirting with Teela is rather amusing and I think far more interesting than most other plots in the film. It's ruined by the fact that they seem to just... stop fighting each other so Teela can stand alone and stare in shock at Adam getting stabbed. For an extremely long time. Evil-Lynn didn't flee the scene. Not then. She does it later. She just leaves Teela alone. And Teela doesn't help Adam. She doesn't fight Skeletor. She just stares.

I do not at all understand the whole mindgames sequence where Skeletor chooses not to just kill Adam but rather wander around his psyche. You could argue this is how he learns what Earth is, since he's surprised by what it is (or at least what HR is), but it doesn't have any value here. Maybe it'll have value in some later hypothetical movie or spin-off or whatever where Skeletor invades Earth so we can sort of rehash MOTU 1987. But it doesn't have value here. You could argue Skeletor just likes torturing people to vent, which, okay, fine. You could argue Skeletor is sexually obsessed with Adam, which he very much seems to be, and that's why he doesn't kill Adam. It just goes along with, "It doesn't really make any sense to do this other than for drama", which yeah, fine. I guess? But it also gave us Skeletor's only good line in the film, where he talks about Adam's dick (something like, "The glory of that big long sword hanging between your thighs"). So you know. Whatever. And for people who want Skeletor in a business suit, holding a coffee mug, there's that.

I actually like plots where we focus on how the sword isn't the power, but Adam is (or at least holds it within himself). I've written a lot of fanfiction for it over the years and MOTURA also dealt with it. It's a lot of fun. I'm glad it was used here. It would be better if the reasoning for why the Sorceress made this choice made any sense. At least MOTU 2002 helped explain why Adam is a worthy bearer, while dealing with the uncomfortable nature of not being "good" enough, himself and how he finds this frustrating. Something this movie wants to do, but fails at. 24 years later. And five years after MOTURA dealt with it decently well, too.

Adam slow-mo punching Skeletor is some of the dumbest direction in this movie. If Adam like... punched Skeletor through a wall or something, that might be more impressive. But it's not. And I can't help but think how it's yet another callback to more impressive punch-out scenes. Like when Superman beats the snot out of Darkseid in Justice League: Unlimited.

MOTU 2026 wants Adam's choice to not use the power when he knows how to, to matter in the same way Clark holding back until Darkseid is about to murder Bruce matters. As Clark explains, “Me, I’ve got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can’t you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.”

But there's a difference here. Darkseid and Superman have history: Darkseid captured and brainwashed Superman. And Clark has lived a life trying to control his abilities. Adam only got his abilities recently, and has history with Skeletor, but a distant and relatively recent kind (yes, Skeletor made Adam an orphan, but Adam's spent 15 years away from the guy, and only recently started actually combating him). It ends up feeling weirdly non-personal. And the result of Adam not holding back isn't as interesting to look at as watching Clark mash Darkseid through Metropolis. The only interesting point is when Adam destroys Skeletor's havoc staff, killing Skeletor. It's a situation where the elements are there, but they're not nearly as interesting. I've seen plenty of "He-Man lets loose" scenes in HMOTU 2002 and MOTURA. This doesn't manage, at all. Which is unfortunate, because I think Adam's verbal comeback is very good (and hidden badass is one of my favorite tropes). It's sad it doesn't get used well.

"Now that's unfair, because that JLU episode is from 2005! Times have changed!" You're right. Here's a similar scene from 2025.

Now if you really editorialize: Randor hated that Adam was lazy and inactive, and it is when Adam is trying to be proactive and forceful and quick to jump into a fight (e.g., head to Snake Mountain) that he is perhaps mimicking this ideal of Randor's best... and it largely backfires. And Adam only prevails when he uses his head. Like in the prison and refusing to actually pose a threat to Skeletor until the climax, so Skeletor underestimated him (kind of). Which doesn't match the compassion bit, nor are we shown Adam is intelligent, but like... I don't know, I'm trying here?

So the royalty are back in power. For some reason. Despite the fact that they failed to keep Skeletor's forces out and presumably people managed without the monarchy for a time. Representative democracy anyone? No? I get the USA has tons of issues (to put it lightly), but I find it hard to believe that allegedly empathetic and compassionate Adam went from living in a republic for 15 years right back to being a prince in a monarchy like there's literally nothing wrong with that. Compassionate dictators, I guess? Will this ever be addressed in the future? I doubt it.

The laughing scene is meant to, I guess, play into the meme of HMOTU 1983 He-Man laughing while singing "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes

The song was used in the movie's marketing and is part of the soundtrack. It's not subtle. Mattel even did an official laughing Prince Adam with the meme doll back in 2018.

The weird overlaughing at the end of the movie is not funny.

The updated modern take on Adam's Eternia civilian clothes works very well, leaning more into HMOTU 2002 and MOTURA's red redesigns than the HMOTU 1983 pink costume. Better than some of the other characters, anyway (e.g., Teela).

I don't understand why Adam feels the need to hide while he transforms. It again plays into how he's an idiot. I guess there's maybe something here about how people in different iterations of the series were told but kept it secret and/or guessed but just didn't tell him in the other series? But here it just kind of makes him look dumb and like more of a manchild unwilling to step out of his childhood memories, so it serves no purpose whatsoever. Other than maybe he doesn't want to be naked in front of his friends every time he turns into He-Man, I guess, which is valid.

I don't have it in me to go with how the movie does extremely little with its queer fanbase roots. The most is like... there are I guess references to cruise culture, and Skeletor is a queer-coded villain lusting after Adam (which is so creative in 2026). And how Adam's wanting to be someone else for his father is very easily translatable to the struggles of closeted kids dealing with their homophobic parents/family. But subtext at most is disappointing at best.

In conclusion

The movie has its moments. Good ones, even. It made me laugh, intentionally, quite a few times. As someone who grew up with a lot of the things it references, getting the references was fun. The score is very good. The costumes are not all bad. It works decently enough as a science fantasy movie. But MOTU has better iterations, particularly in HMOTU 2002 and MOTURA. Some of the highest praise I can give this is that Jared Leto does not ruin the movie (or otherwise add anything to it) and the movie is better than MOTU 1987. But that's kind of it.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983)

Masters of the Universe (1987)

The New Adventures of He-Man (1990)