{"id":6793,"date":"2024-10-25T11:19:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6793"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:19:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:19:03","slug":"masters-of-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/masters-of-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Masters of the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Masters of the Universe<\/strong> (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon\/Sci-Fi-Action-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, sci-fi\/action violence, scary moments)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gary Goddard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Odell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bill Conti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Hanania Baer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 7, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Meg Foster, Billy Barty, Courteney Cox, Robert Duncan McNeill, Jon Cypher, Chelsea Field, James Tolkan, Christina Pickles, Barry Livingston.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $17.3M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0As a general rule, I try to avoid movies based on a line of popular toy lines. More often than not, it\u2019s going to suck. How many of the Transformers movies are any good? Live-action movies based on popular cartoons are just as bad. How many of those have been any good? I can think of only one movie that\u2019s an exception to both, 1987\u2019s Masters of the Universe<\/strong> starring Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV) as He-Man, the super-strong defender of Castle Grayskull in the magical realm of Eternia. It\u2019s actually pretty good in its own goofball way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The date August 12, 1987 sticks out in my mind because it\u2019s the day I did a threesome with my then-girlfriend JC. HEY! Get your mind out of the gutter! I mean I took her to see three movies at the local multiplex- Masters of the Universe<\/strong>, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Summer School. Nothing says love better than a girl willing to sit through dopey movies with her fellow. I probably would have skipped the first one altogether had it not been a Cannon movie. I had only a passing familiarity with He-Man. I never watched the show or owned any of the toys, but I figured with a studio like Cannon behind it, it had to be worth a look. I enjoyed it immensely and, surprisingly, JC didn\u2019t hate it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now for the plot of Masters of the Universe<\/strong> and you better believe it\u2019s silly. Archvillain Skeletor (Langella, Dracula) has seized control of Grayskull where he plans to absorb the powers of the universe with the help of a \u201cCosmic Key\u201d, an electronic device that uses sound to open portals to any part of the universe. He-Man is only one that can stop him. He\u2019s joined by veteran soldier Man-at-Arms (Cypher, Hill Street Blues), his warrior daughter Teela (Field, The Last Boy Scout) and Gwildor (Barty, Under the Rainbow), the locksmith who built the Cosmic Key. He just happens to have the prototype in his possession.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They sneak into the castle, but are outnumbered by Skeletor\u2019s forces. They escape through a portal opened by Gwildor punching random keys. They\u2019re transported to Earth where they immediately lose the key which ends up in the hands of teen couple Julie (Cox, Friends) and Kevin (McNeill, Star Trek: Voyager). They\u2019re spending their final night together as Julie plans to move away following the deaths of her parents in a plane crash. Thinking it\u2019s a Japanese synthesizer, musician Kevin plays with it which alerts Skeletor\u2019s forces to its location. He dispatches a quartet of mercenaries led by his second-in-command Evil-Lyn (Foster, They Live) to retrieve it. Needless to say, all cosmic hell breaks loose in the small California suburban town.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have to admit Masters of the Universe<\/strong> is kookily entertaining. I was afraid I wouldn\u2019t be able to make heads or tails of it since I didn\u2019t watch the cartoon. By all rights, it should have been a stinker, but it\u2019s not. I\u2019ll concede that the premise is convoluted, but we\u2019re not talking about a plot that doesn\u2019t make sense here. It\u2019s more nonsensical than anything else. For example, how is it that NONE of Julie\u2019s neighbors notice the commotion when the bad guys show up at her house looking for the key? Every suburban block has at least one Gladys Kravitz. And what about the battle at the music store? Where are the police? There\u2019s already one cop, Lubic (Tolkan, Back to the Future), on the scene. Why doesn\u2019t he call for back-up? You\u2019d think that an alien attack warrants a little more attention. This is just a taste of the inherent silliness of Masters of the Universe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director Gary Goddard, in his sole feature film effort, keeps things moving along nicely. I just LOVE the cheeseball special effects. They look cheap, but they\u2019re still cooler than CGI. They\u2019re also better than the effects in Superman IV, also a Cannon production. Lundgren, in his first leading role, does a reasonably good job as He-Man even if he struggles to conceal his accent. Why even bother? Schwarzenegger partly built his career on his accent. Physically, Lundgren has the right build to play the muscle-bound swordsman and the fighting skills to back it up. Langella, totally unrecognizable under the Skeletor mask, delivers a delightfully campy performance as the villain who gets to deliver wonky dialogue like \u201cReturn with me to Eternia as my slave and save [your friends\u2019] miserable lives or perish with them on this primitive and tasteless planet.\u201d Foster is perfectly cast as an icy villainess; those penetrating blue eyes of hers serve her well. Cox, in her first major role, is suitably spunky as the girl-next-door heroine. She and McNeill make a cute couple. It\u2019s always great to see diminutive Barty and chrome-domed Tolkan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the end, Masters of the Universe<\/strong> is good mindless summer movie fun. It contains a lot of dopey dialogue but the award goes to the Sorceress who warns Skeletor \u201cThe dark can embrace the light, but never eclipse it.\u201d LOL! What does that even mean? Watching it now reminds me of good times spent at the movies watching such absurdities. It\u2019s a nice mix of flash and trash. It\u2019s campy on the level of Flash Gordon. Movies like Masters of the Universe<\/strong> have an innocence that today\u2019s filmmakers can\u2019t seem to capture. It never fails to put a smile on my face.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Masters of the Universe (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon\/Sci-Fi-Action-Fantasy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, sci-fi\/action violence, scary moments)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gary Goddard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Odell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bill Conti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Hanania Baer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 7, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Meg Foster, Billy Barty, Courteney Cox, Robert Duncan McNeill, Jon Cypher, Chelsea Field, James Tolkan, Christina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guilty-pleasures","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Masters-of-the-Universe-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6793"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7226,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions\/7226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}