1987 action movie
Bad Movie Rating: 2/5 (Fred: 4/5; Jeremy: 3/5; Josh: fell asleep; Kristen: 3/5; Libby: no rating)
Rating: 9/20
Plot: He-Man and a few friends are whisked to Earth because it’s much cheaper to film at music stores than it is to construct sets that are supposed to be on Eternia. Skeletor’s crew chases them down because they want the little fellow’s synthesizer. Earthlings, including one of the Friends, get involved.
I’ll start with the positives. Dolph Lundgren was probably born to play He-Man, and Frank Langella is bad ass as his nemesis, even with that rubbery skull of his. Billy Barty, maybe the little person actor has been caked with the most make-up and prosthetics out of all little people actors, stands tall as Gwildor, a character who shouldn’t even exist because he wasn’t a Masters of the Universe character. Teela looks pretty good in her costume even if it doesn’t look anything like Teela’s actual outfit, and Man-at-Arms, one of the lamest Masters good guy characters, and Beast Man, one of the lamest Masters bad guy characters, both look fine.
So how did they mess up Masters of the Universe so badly?
At the top of the list, you’ve got the settings. There are essentially four in the entire movie. You’ve got one exterior shot of Castle Greyskull that is used once because they probably realized it wasn’t good enough to show twice, and you’ve got several scenes in Skeletor’s immense but sparsely-decorated throne room. You’ve got scenes on earth in a high school gymnasium and a record store and the street outside the record store. That’s pretty much it. And that’s not a lot of variety, people. I’m not sure who asked for a movie about He-Man and friends that doesn’t take place on Eternia, but they definitely got it. It just sort of takes the wonder out of the whole thing.
Second, you’ve got the characters. He-Man and Skeletor had to be in it, of course, and their aforementioned right-hand men Beast Man and Man-at-Arms also needed to be there. Teela makes sense, too. Skeletor’s a classic villain but those other characters? Dull! Even He-Man was always sort of dull. With a collection of characters that include a guy covered in moss, a smelly skunk man, guys who use their heads as battering rams, bumblebee guys, reptile people, men with metallic hands, and guys with many faces, you’ve got this colorful and interesting world. There’s loads of potential for some interesting characters in both this movie and later sequels. Instead, we get just a few original characters and a bunch of other half-assed guys created just for this movie. You get some robot guys who shoot a little worse than Stormtroopers. And you get Billy Barty who could have played Orko but is playing this Jar-Jar Binksian thing instead:
Gwildor’s in the movie way too much, something I almost never say about little people, and he’s got way too many lines. And the writers gave him a name that Dolph Lundgren can’t even pronounce. But believe it or not, there’s a character who’s even dumber–Karg. Here’s Karg:
And nothing more needs to be said about that.
Oh, Evil-Lyn. I forgot that she was in there, only she wasn’t yellow. I always wondered as a kid whether or not Skeletor was banging her. And now I’m distracted and really want to make a boner joke.
The human characters are as boring as you’d expect them to be in a Masters of the Universe movie except for James Tolkan who plays a detective. He was actually my second favorite character behind Skeletor, and that’s probably something that should be considered criminal for a movie based on these characters.
We Bad Movie Clubbers argued over whether or not this movie was even bad. A Masters of the Universe could have gone both ways. It could have been pretty good or it could have been hilariously awful. But there’s one thing it couldn’t be–boring. And sadly, that’s what it ended up being. Not even Dolph Lundgren, who I heard has the power, could save this one.
