Masters of the Universe (1987)
There's a particular kind of betrayal that only childhood nostalgia can deliver. You build something up in your memory for decades, you convince yourself it was genuinely brilliant, and then you sit down to revisit it as an adult and watch it crumble before your eyes in real time. That's exactly what happened when I put on Gary Goddard's 1987 live-action Masters of the Universe. I grew up right at the tail end of the He-Man craze, and my early years were inextricably tied to a battered VHS tape of this film and the cartoon that dominated Saturday mornings. For years, the memories were glowing, painted in the bright primary colours of Eternia. Revisiting it now? Those rose-tinted glasses have been unceremoniously smashed.
The magic I remembered as a kid was, I've come to accept, entirely a product of my own imagination. The actual film is just bad in pretty much every conceivable sense.
Strip away the nostalgia and the sheer lack of craft on display is staggering. The costume design looks like it was raided from a discount fancy dress shop. The scenery is a mishmash of cheap studio sets and unconvincing matte paintings that wouldn't fool a particularly credulous eight-year-old. And the synth-heavy soundtrack is an absolute assault on the ears, which pains me to say, because I usually love a synth soundtrack. Even the acting, which you'd hope might carry some of the weight, is remarkably wooden. Dolph Lundgren does his best to chomp the scenery as He-Man, and Courteney Cox genuinely tries to inject some life into proceedings, but they're completely undermined at every turn by a script and production design that feel thrown together on a deadline with half a budget and a wing and a prayer.
What saves this from being a truly miserable watch is that it isn't offensive. It's just profoundly inept. It teeters right on the edge of achieving that legendary "so bad it's good" charm, the kind of anarchic incompetence you get with The Room or Troll 2. There are moments where the sheer unadulterated absurdity of a muscle-bound hero fighting a bloke in a skull mask with a glowing sword almost makes you smile. Almost. But the film never quite commits to its own madness with enough sincerity to become a genuine midnight movie classic. It just sort of sits there, awkwardly existing in the uncanny valley of terrible 80s toy adaptations. It's not fun enough to be a camp treasure and not competent enough to be taken seriously.
I kept thinking about how this compares to other franchise films built primarily around selling merchandise to kids. At least something like Pokémon the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution has a certain earnest affection for its source material holding it together. Masters of the Universe feels like nobody involved particularly cared about He-Man beyond the cheque they were cashing.
As a time capsule, it's a fascinating artefact of a very specific Hollywood era, one where studios would greenlight almost anything with a toy line attached and a recognisable logo on the poster. But fascinating doesn't mean good, and nostalgia doesn't mean quality. Looking at it through adult eyes, this is a deeply underwhelming piece of work. It's harmless enough if you're specifically hunting for a laugh at the expense of its own production values, a few cans in on a Friday night with similarly masochistic mates. But as a genuine fantasy epic, something that earns the grand mythology it's supposedly drawing from, it fails spectacularly.
I can appreciate what this film meant to a generation of kids, myself included. Those memories are real, even if the film that inspired them doesn't deserve them. Two stars, and I'm being generous for the sake of the seven-year-old version of me who once thought Dolph Lundgren was the coolest man alive.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 1987 | Watched: 2026-07-21
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: MGM Plus Amazon Channel · ITVX Premium
Rent: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV · MGM+ Amazon Channel · Philo · MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
