Monday, March 03, 2014

Ask JKM A Question: Masters of the Universe (1987) ?



A dear friend and reader of the blog, Hugh, writes:

"Have you ever written a review of the 1987 Masters of the Universe film? 

I've only just seen it after all of these years. I was a fan of the toys, and though I wanted to see the movie when it originally came out, I never got to (we had no theater in the town where I grew up, so viewings tended to be limited). 

For whatever reason, despite any manner of ways I might have viewed it since, I never got around to watching it until a snow day in the latest winter attack (and only got the DVD at a bargain price over this past Christmas). 


It's hardly a classic, but I was pleasantly surprised. I've always heard that Lundgren was bad as He-Man, but I didn't think he was here (particularly given some of the actors surrounding him). 

In fact, its cast seems to me to be a strong one, particularly for a genre film of the time--Frank Langella stands out the most as Skeletor, but having Meg Foster as Evil-Lyn gives a second villain with some strong (and strange?) screen presence, and veterans like Billy Barty, Jon Cypher, and Christina Pickles round out the cast nicely. 



While Courtney Cox' role has become fodder for trivia, I was more amused to see Robert Duncan McNeill so many years before Star Trek: Voyager


While the monsters did come across in a few scenes as a cross between Mad Max rejects and Power Rangers bad guys, for the most part it seemed to be striving to be a little better than just a two-hour commercial, which is what I remember it being knocked for at the time. 

What say ye?"

Hugh: It has been years -- perhaps decades -- since I saw Master of the Universe (1987). 

Like you, I really wanted to see the film in theaters on its original run, but somehow didn't make it in time.  

Then I finally saw the film on VHS in the late 1980s...and promptly forgot everything about it. Not because I disliked it, but because I was preparing to move away from home and start college. 

Today, I mostly remember a few images from the film, mainly of Langella as the fearsome Skeletor.

As a fan of the animated series (and the toys...), I am looking forward to re-visiting this one, even if it isn't exactly, as you say, a classic.  I just put the title at the top of my Netflix queue, so look for a review of Masters of the Universe some time next week (likely next Tuesday, March 11...).

Thanks for the question, my friend.

2 comments:

  1. I despise this film with every inch and fiber of my being.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:14 AM

    I have seen this movie exactly twice - the first time as kid and the second time about a year or two ago. Strangely enough, it turned out to be quite a bit better than I remembered it. While it's not a classic, it's the kind of movie that would probably appeal to fans of The Last Starfighter, Flash Gordon or maybe even The Terminator (though its obviously not of the same quality). The problem is that the movie doesn't have too much to do with the toy line or the cartoons, even though some of the same characters appear. This was one of those movies that lacked a budget to adequately show a different planet so they chose to set most of the action on present-day Earth. While that wasn't very faithful to the source material, the end result was still much superior to similarly-minded movies like the truly awful Beastmaster 2. There's also been talk of a remake (at one point even Brad Pitt was supposed to be attached to the film!) but its been years since then and I don't see the remake happening anytime soon.

    Ratko H.

    ReplyDelete

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