Masters of the Universe (1987)

DIRECTOR: Gary Goddard

CAST: Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Courteney Cox, Meg Foster, Billy Barty, James Tolkan, Robert Duncan McNeill, Jon Cypher, Chelsea Field, Christina Pickles

REVIEW:

It’s possible that a successful movie adaptation could have been wrung out of the Mattel toy line and accompanying comic books and animated movies telling the fantasy adventure tales of the Conan-esque He-Man and his merry band, but it hasn’t been this movie. Its studio Cannon Group touted it as “the Star Wars of the eighties”, a rather hilarious overstatement (and also ill-fitting, considering there were two actual Star Wars movies in the eighties), but there is a (small) grain of truth in that statement, as this wannabe franchise owes, in thinly-veiled fashion, as much or more to being a cheap Star Wars knock-off as it does to its own source material.

The most basic set-up will sound familiar to He-Man fans, although it stops there. On the planet of Eternia, “at the center of the universe”, the evil Skeletor (Frank Langella) has seized Castle Greyskull and taken its Sorceress (Christina Pickles) captive, planning to absorb her power by the next moonrise (or something like that). Skeletor’s archenemy He-Man (Dolph Lundgren)—you’ve probably figured out by now that this franchise doesn’t go for subtle character names—and his friends, chiefly his right hand man Man-At-Arms (Jon Cypher) and his daughter Teela (Chelsea Field) have been relegated to leading a resistance against Skeletor’s minions (why, one might even call them “The Rebellion”). To that end, they seek out the locksmith Gwildor (Billy Barty), whose invention the “Cosmic Key”, which can open portals to anywhere, was obtained by Skeletor’s right-hand woman Evil-Lyn (Meg Foster) and used to breach Castle Greyskull. In an attempt to retake the castle, He-Man and friends mount a raid to steal back the Cosmic Key, but when their storming of the castle goes awry, they’re forced to open an escape portal to somewhere, anywhere….which turns out to be none other than 1980s Earth, where to the disappointment of Masters of the Universe fans wanting to actually spend more than ten minutes in the world where the source material takes place, they’ll proceed to bumble around for two-thirds of the movie, eventually joined by Evil-Lyn and henchmen, who want their key back. Oh, and the key in question has been lost and stumbled across by a pair of Earthling teenagers, Julie (Courteney Cox) and her boyfriend Kevin (Robert Duncan McNeill), and there’s also an annoying detective (James Tolkan) who gets thrown into the mix when he starts investigating all the weird goings-on.

If this all sounds like profoundly silly stuff, rest assured that the execution does nothing to boost what’s on the page. Budget limitations are way too obvious—Eternia is a singularly visually unimpressive and uninteresting place to visit for being “the center of the universe”, and everyone from Dolph Lundgren to Meg Foster looks like they came straight to the set from a campy eighties costume party—and as previously indicated, the movie arguably owes more to being a thinly-veiled Star Wars knock-off than its own source material. Skeletor’s soldiers bear a suspicious resemblance to black-colored versions of Star Wars Stormtroopers—and are similarly ineffectual cannon fodder who can’t hit anything—and for that matter Skeletor himself, with his white skeletal face and black cloak and hood, bears rather more resemblance to a somewhat more sprightly knock-off of Star Wars’ Emperor than he does to his toy/comic version. And things only get lamer when our heroes—and the audience—get stranded on Earth. Not only does this feel like a lamely over-obvious attempt to skirt budget limitations by avoiding having to spend much time on an alien world, but Masters of the Universe fans are bound to be disappointed when He-Man and friends spend two-thirds of the runtime playing second fiddle to a pair of dull eighties teenagers who feel like they wandered in from every generic eighties high school movie ever. Along the way, there’s a few action sequences, but they’re clumsily-choreographed (there’s a clumsy scuffle between He-Man and four of Skeletor’s ostensible “finest warriors”, who are all useless, and the climactic duel isn’t likely to convince anyone of either Dolph Lundgren or Frank Langella’s skills as swordsmen), and not likely to generate any more of a reaction than the threadbare attempt at giving Julie a sad backstory (she’s orphaned, as we learn via clunky graveside exposition). There’s some feeble attempts at fish-out-of-water comedy when the Eternians are stranded on Earth which make about as much impression as, well, most of the rest of what’s going on here. Additionally, while this might want to remind some viewers of Star Wars, its low budget doesn’t make that a flattering comparison for Masters of the Universe to invite upon itself; the climactic “battle” for Castle Greyskull feels like a small skirmish involving about ten people (including a couple of teenagers and a bumbling cop). The Battle of Hoth, it ain’t, and for that matter Los Angeles seems practically a ghost town apart from Julie, Kevin, and Detective Lubic, even when stuff is blowing up, sci-fi ships are flying around, and armies are emerging from portals, which you’d think might attract some notice, but apparently not. Either the movie couldn’t even splurge on any extras, or Angelenos are some heavy sleepers.

With one notable exception, none of the cast make much of an impression. The show-stealer is Frank Langella, who sinks his teeth with relish into Skeletor (a role he accepted enthusiastically to please his young son, an avid Masters of the Universe fan), doing enough snarling and scenery-chewing to almost compensate for his cheap makeup (you can literally see the black veil, Halloween mask-style, blacking out his nostrils). As silly and one-dimensional as his material might be, Langella dives in like it’s Shakespeare, his commanding tones giving his lines rather more gravitas than they deserve, never more so than in his finest few minutes, where he delivers a monologue that inhales every scrap of scenery that isn’t tied down and ends by bellowing “I. AM. A…..GOD!“. Far from phoning in for an easy paycheck, Langella is clearly having a grand old time here, and his scenery-devouring makes his Skeletor fun to watch. Apart from Langella, about the only other member of the cast who does what could be called a decent job is Meg Foster (whose Evil-Lyn is about the only one of Skeletor’s bumbling henchmen who gets anything done), stalking around as the kind of sinister figure she got typecast as in the eighties (it’s the eyes) and sure to inspire some teenage male fantasies with what looks like fetishistic sci-fi dominatrix wardrobe (an impression her ice queen demeanor does nothing to dispel). Dolph Lundgren, looking as scantily-clad and greased-up as a Mr. Universe competition (or a gay porno) and grunting monotone lines in a thick Swedish accent, comes across like Discount Arnold Schwarzenegger. Courteney Cox and Robert Duncan McNeill are our bland and generic eighties teenagers (who, as is often the case, were both obviously in their twenties at the time). There’s something sad and uncomfortable about Billy Barty playing a troll-like creature buried under unrecognizable prosthetics (sadly typical of the kinds of indignities actors with dwarfism were often relegated to). Not only is James Tolkan’s Detective Lubic an annoying and extraneous plot device who exists for the sole purpose of popping up to cause complications for our heroes at inconvenient moments, he’s also overplayed and cheesy, like Tolkan prepared for the part by watching too many hard-boiled noir detectives. Characters from the source material, like Jon Cypher’s Man-At-Arms and Chelsea Field’s Teela, are just “there”. St. Elsewhere‘s Christina Pickles, as “The Sorceress”, gets the singularly thankless role of looking increasingly decrepit while being held captive in a sort of forcefield and providing alarmed reaction shots every time Skeletor makes some dire pronouncement (which is, well, pretty much every time he appears).

While both a critical and commercial failure at the time, making $17 million against a $22 million budget and widely-panned as the misfire that it was, Masters of the Universe has since gained a following as a “cult classic”, which frankly isn’t surprising given its goofy charms and indeed one could be forgiven for enjoying the movie in all its silliness as a guilty pleasure served up with a healthy helping of eighties-tastic cheese and more than a healthy helping of camp (led by a scantily-clad, oiled-up Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella’s delicious hamfest of a performance), but for anyone seeking a Masters of the Universe adaptation with any degree of seriousness, they’ll have to keep waiting and hoping.

* *