Masters of the Universe (2026) – A Review

The He-Man movie is good. Really good!

The original Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series (1983-1985) was not my first contact with the franchise; that came in 2002, with the reboot series. It would be years before I learned about the Filmation show. Watching installments from the original helped me to better appreciate the show that I grew up with and made me more familiar with the franchise than I had been prior.

You can imagine my apprehension, then, when the trailers for 2026’s Masters of the Universe arrived. Franchises have been murdered right and left for the last fifteen years; the idea of watching He-Man be destroyed on the big screen had no appeal. But on viewing the trailers, I found they actually looked good. They were not quite on the level of the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, but they were definitely good and seemed to indicate that the movie had been made with genuine love.

So along with a friend, I went to see the film. Until the very end I did not allow myself to become overly invested in the movie, watching it as a writer and reviewer instead of as a fan. I was, quite literally, waiting for the other shoe to drop and the mockery to begin. But the conclusion I came to halfway through the movie and which the finale solidified is that it was made with real love by true fans of the series for other fans of the franchise.

Research indicates that my instincts were right: director Travis Knight, actors Jared Leto and Idris Elba, and others are all reportedly huge fans of He-Man. The movie does not ask: “What would He-Man realistically be like in our world?”, something which the Marvel Cinematic Universe relied upon in its heyday to make superheroes appeal to a wider audience. Rather, Masters of the Universe asks, “Can we make a Saturday Morning Cartoon a good movie without losing the beloved Saturday Morning Cartoon effect that we enjoyed so much as kids?”

The answer to that question is yes. The only complaints I have with the film are nitpicks: the rather explicit jokes that the villains made, for instance, caused me to wince. There was also not enough Sorceress (Morena Baccarin) for my preference. I will agree with the Critical Drinker that Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie) may have needed a little more screentime, but she certainly made the most of the time that she did have, turning in an excellent performance as Skeletor’s right hand woman.

Here I will answer the primary objections I have seen online, all of which I disagree with: I did not find that the movie mocked me as a fan of the series nor that it mocked the franchise. The characters were all wonderful, and actor Jared Leto was Skeletor the entire time. If it were not for the fact that they needed an actor, you would think Skeletor simply walked from the TV screen to the silver one. Leto’s being a fan combined with his famous (infamous?) method acting skills paid off here perfectly.

Teela (Camila Mendes) was not a girlboss in any way, shape, or form. Teela was always my favorite character; if she were a girlboss in this movie, I would be writing a very different review. She was not as hard on Adam as she typically was in the franchise, a decision likely made to prevent her from becoming the unpleasant female lead everyone anticipated which was ultimately a nice touch. Mendes did a very good job and deserves more praise than I think she got for her portrayal of Eternia’s premiere heroine.

Idris Elba plays Duncan/Man-at-Arms to perfection, especially when he shows paternal care for Teela and Adam (Nicholas Galitzine). Those scenes alone were worth the price of admission, as that is the single most important part of Duncan’s character, and Elba nailed it to the wall. His Man-at-Arms’ fall into the bottle is masterfully performed as well; though it would normally rankle, Elba and the script give due weight to this change early in the film. Man-at-Arms’ decision to drink away the pain comes primarily because he feels he failed his daughter, perhaps even more than he feels he failed his king, and he does not know how to properly deal with falling short.

Galitzine’s performance is very, very good. As one friend put it, Galitzine’s Adam is more of a “nerdy goof” in the film than he typically appears in the franchise. He is still honest and a genuinely good guy; the comedy of his performance flows from those virtues, it does not mock them. Adam is a truly nice man trying to survive in a “Woke” world that penalizes all masculinity – traditional or otherwise – whether the man in question possesses the virtues the “Woke” claims to champion or not.

This is not character destroying. If Adam were more vociferous or serious in his presentation to modern Americans, things could have ended badly for him. Early in the movie, his date leaves early because she thinks he is crazy, but she also believes that he is a specific form of harmless crazy. If Adam were more emphatic, he might have been placed in a mental health facility rather than landing a job in Human Resources.

Admittedly, the scenes of Adam working in HR do grate on a viewer’s nerves, but that is part of the point. The “Woke” abuse of men which HR departments emphasize is in direct contrast and conflict with the warrior ethos of Eternia. Having been sent to Earth as a child after watching Skeletor crush his kingdom, Adam is understandably confused about what precisely it means to be a man on Eternia at the same time he is dissatisfied with Earth’s “Woke” interpretation of masculinity.

This is where the movie’s plot and theme really shine. The film grasps what a friend and Global War on Terror veteran says about the American military. Her cogent point is that America’s military combines the best of the warrior ethos with the soldier mindset. By this she means that the warrior, traditionally, focuses on personal strength, skill, and accomplishment in battle. Meanwhile, the soldier focuses on being part of his unit or army to achieve victory. The soldier thinks as part of a greater whole in order to attain his goal; the warrior thinks as though he alone carries the battle, and any spoils he receives as a result are his natural due. America honors the individual soldier’s prowess without compromising the unity of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine corps, which is not what happens on Eternia.

Eternia’s warrior ethos is shown to have a massive blindspot early in the film. When Skeletor arrives to take the city of Eternos, his Skel-Knights mow down or bulldoze through the individuals who charge them, including the men wearing armor like Duncan’s. These are men whom Duncan trained as warriors, not as soldiers, which shows in their ragged, disorganized charge. They are fighting using older barbarian practices rather than a modern or advanced army’s maneuvers.

In contrast, most of the Skel-Knights fight like soldiers, with Skeletor’s Evil Warriors acting less like warriors and more like flexible units. Even when they personally engage Eternian Masters such as Duncan in combat, they tend to be more effective due to their focus on Skeletor’s goal. Winning personal glory for themselves is a nice bonus, but it is not the point. The point is to not do something that makes Skeletor kill them for failing him, which means acting like soldiers instead of warriors.

Thus we see that the men of Eternia are masculine, but it is a neo-barbarian type of masculinity that emphasizes personal brawn and bravery over unity of purpose. Understandably, this means that the only thing Adam knows for certain about Eternian concepts of masculinity is that he does not fit his father’s criteria for it. Even Man-at-Arms agrees, though he is not nearly as hard on Adam as King Randor (James Purefoy) is in an effort to make the Prince grow up faster.

Adam is not happy or comfortable with the “Woke” model of masculinity currently in vogue on Earth, either, despite his natural proclivity to de-escalate or avoid conflict. During his day job in HR, Adam tries very hard not to fall asleep while listening to a female employee complain to him about a male employee refusing to accept “[her] truth.” Adam pleasantly tells her that perhaps she should listen to the other employee truthfully rather than insist the man she is complaining about meet her definition of “truth.” The shocked and horrified “What?” he receives in response testifies to the fact that the “Woke” HR department will not practice what it preaches, meaning Adam does not fit in there anymore than he does on Eternia.

Once he returns to Eternia and gains the ability to transform, Adam suddenly finds himself with all the power of a god but no real practice using it. Earth has not required him to fight, so his training in anything but evasion is sorely lacking. When he finally begins to find his feet as He-Man, he comes face-to-face with the fact that he misunderstood his father’s disappointment. Randor was never actually frustrated with Adam’s desire to make peace rather than war; he was genuinely afraid that when war came, Adam would be killed immediately by an enemy physically stronger than him.

This is the paradox of masculinity which the movie focuses on, and which G.K. Chesterton would have appreciated: a man is, in a sense, a small-g god. He has enormous physical power that, if not used carefully, will cause more harm than good. Negotiation, Adam’s default preference, thus has an honored place in a man’s toolkit. But when a man’s very physical power is needed to defeat evil, he must apply his strength properly to stop it or lose everything he holds dear. Paradoxically, the very beliefs that the “Woke” HR twists in order to destroy men are proven to be tools Adam can use properly for real gain when he turns the Eternian Masters from highly individualized fighters into an overwhelming unified force, marrying their warrior muscles to soldierly discipline.

It is simple and fairly cliché to write, but the fact is that the movie recognizes that Eternia is not as advanced culturally as it is technologically. Likewise, the film understands that the “Woke” movement which has gripped the West has perverted necessary skills every man should know in order to abuse him while pretending to champion those principles. Real men try to settle the dispute by talking first, resorting to fighting when it is certain that there are no other means available to avoid conflict, which is a very Christian message. After all, God became Man, and He could have forced us to do His Will since He indeed “has the power” to do so.

Yet He never abused His power over us. Can He-Man not learn to walk in His footsteps, even if he stumbles a little at first? Adam spends the movie growing into that Christian balance, that happy medium between warrior and soldier, and the film’s finale beautifully encapsulates the whole concept.

But you do not need to take my word for it: Masters of the Universe is still playing in theaters. If my review has convinced you to give it a try – or if you just want to prove me wrong and write your own review trashing the film – go see it on the big screen while you may. Don’t wait! Do it now! By the Power of Grayskull, you have the POWER (to buy a ticket)!