Masters Of The Universe Review: The Most Average Movie Of The Summer

How one feels about the 2026 "Masters of the Universe" probably has a lot to do with expectations going in. The first wave of "Masters of the Universe" reactions from critics was surprisingly positive, while subsequent reviews have been more mixed. This might just be the normal dynamic of early social media reactions always leaning more enthusiastic than full reviews. However, I also think that some critics expecting "Masters of the Universe" to be the worst movie ever (because how could it not be?), came out pleasantly surprised by it not being the worst movie ever ... and subsequently, those going in hearing it was "actually pretty good" came out underwhelmed that it's not actually that good. Such is the power of expectations when approaching an object of pure average mediocrity.

Travis Knight, the Nike nepo-baby who runs the beloved stop-motion studio Laika, has made an actually pretty good '80s nostalgia toy commercial movie before: the 2018 "Transformers" spin-off "Bumblebee." But "Bumblebee" had a normal production cycle, while this reboot of He-Man and friends has been passed around development hell for ages — the story credits imply the script was Frankensteined from drafts written in 2010 and 2018. The result is a movie well past its natural sell-by date. It's still watchable thanks to the competency of the talent involved — it might be perfect for a long plane ride where being way too long won't matter as much — but it will make no lasting impression.

Before we go on, a minor disclaimer: I had to take a quick bathroom break around the time Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) reunites with his battle-cat Cringer (Tom Wilton). He was giving an inspirational speech when I got back. Feel free to yell at me if anything that happened in that minute or so I was gone would radically change my perception of the film.

I'm about 15 years too young to have grown up with the original "He-Man" cartoon and toys (thanks, movie, for making me feel young right as that 20-year-old whippersnapper directing "Backrooms" threatened to make me feel old!). My experience with the franchise is limited to a plethora of memes about its campy homoeroticism, as well as watching N.D. Stevenson's version of "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" which made waves for being both good and actually gay. The new "Masters of the Universe" references those memes, and going full camp aesthetically provides most of its entertainment value. The explanations for the silly names get belabored, but I still laughed when the warrior nicknamed "Fisto" (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson) talks about fisting. The movie's not allowed to get too gay, though — Teela's (Camila Mendes) role in the film is basically just to be a beard for Adam.

The early reaction to "Masters of the Universe" that had me most intrigued was from critic Darren Mooney, who compared it to Jane Schoenbrun's queer horror masterpiece "I Saw the TV Glow." In the broadest of strokes, I can actually see where that comparison comes from: like the "TV Glow" protagonists, Adam comes from a world of fantasy where the villains are winning and gets stuck living out a mundane life on Earth while longing to return home, and both films are using this story to say something about the performance of gender (though from very different angles). "Masters of the Universe" doesn't do the "TV Glow" thing (or maybe the better comparison for a Mattel movie is the "Barbie" thing) where the other world is a TV show or toy in our world, but Adam reuniting with his lost sword in a toy store makes me think they at least considered doing that gimmick.

So that's a potentially interesting story to explore, but the way it's written here is subpar. The movie wants to use Adam's intergalactic origins as a means for wacky fish-out-of-water comedy a la the second acts of "Barbie" and the first "Thor," but the difference is Barbie and Thor have just come to Earth when they're weirding out the normies, while Adam has been living here 15 years. Reasonably by that point, his past would either be a quiet secret or a source of serious strife that makes everyone think he's crazy. Instead he's telling girls his whole backstory on first dates and is only now getting in trouble for discussing swords at his office job he somehow got and is seemingly good at.

Maybe it's silly to criticize the psychological realism of a film about a bunch of action figures punching each other. But when a movie is trying to do a character arc with some emotions, sloppy execution negates the effort. Too often the script is more focused on hitting requisite Hero's Journey beats (how cute, a literal "call to action"/"refusal of the call" scene) without nailing why they're there. The movie's morals about positive masculinity are worthwhile, but Ryan Gosling's Ken had the more convincing story getting to the same point.

"Masters of the Universe" gets points for its performances. Nicholas Galitzine is likable and can do physical comedy well. The one thing the film does better than the "Thor" movies it owes so much to is giving Sir Idris Elba more to do — he's doing better work than this script deserves as the old-school somewhat misguided Man-at-Arms. And now we have to talk about the best and worst thing about this movie: Jared Leto is shockingly entertaining as Skeletor.

The thing is Skeletor would still be entertaining if he were played by anyone else. His body is all CGI, and his deliciously campy dialogue could have been delivered well by any sufficiently hammy actor. We've been starving for a fun evil Disney villain for a while, and this skull-faced dude has that Scar/Jafar energy. Why couldn't they have cast, like, Eddie Redmayne instead of someone actually evil IRL whose presence undermines the film's positive messages?

The look of the film is a mixed bag. The green screen work looks worse than any $200 million movie should, but there's some nice production design and Travis Knight keeps the action colorful and clear. Daniel Pemberton's score is a highlight of the production, with guitar-playing from Queen's Brian May. Some of the self-aware gags are funny, others tiresome, many done before and better in Marvel movies. It's too long at 2 hours and 20 minutes. I like some of what it's going for, but I also just don't care.

"Masters of the Universe" is in theaters June 5.