Mattel Movie Decides Fun is out of the question

 MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987)

Painfully Endured by Jerry Saravia

Back in the 1980's, I always watched the slight, goofy He-Man cartoons with my younger brother. They were a diverting and virtually painless 30 minutes that my brother thoroughly enjoyed (my 70's equivalent would have been the animated "Super Friends"). It was wonderful to see my brother excited and amped up as a new weekly cartoon episode unraveled featuring the further adventures of He-Man and She-Ra facing the primary antagonist, Skeletor. Fun, diverting, painless. These adjectives would not describe Cannon Group's live-action 1987 adaptation of "Masters of the Universe," which landed with a severely towering thud. A movie like this should be infectious and fun and, alas, it is about as much fun as being forced to eat rotten apples - this movie looks rotten as soon as the "Superman"-like opening credits roll.

Dolph Lundgren is He-Man, who just doesn't fit snugly in the role. He is tall but not nearly as muscular as in the cartoon. Lundgren looks tired and exhausted after running around shooting robots with laser guns and holding a heavy sword at the same time. That must be exhausting! Frank Langella is Skeletor wearing a largely inanimate mask - other than his lothario voice, you would never know it was Langella which means almost anybody could have been handpicked to play the role. I will not describe the plot except that it has to do with a device that lands on Earth (along with a few of our chivalrous heroes) and some musician finds the device and thinks it is some synthesizer! Courteney Cox appears as this musician's girlfriend who lost her parents in a plane crash years back. Cox tries to bring some nugget of emotion and acquits herself, seemingly, but I can't say the same for the rest of the cast.

Purportedly based more so on the He-Man action toys than the popular 1980's TV cartoon, "Masters of the Universe" shows that Cannon productions could mishandle this franchise worse than Superman. The same summer saw "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" which at least was funny (with worse special-effects). I'll say one thing in He-Man's rather fruitless favor - James Tolkan as an irate, straight-arrow cop brandishing a shotgun and realizing he's out of his league next to these cosmic monsters and He-Man. Charismatic Tolkan (and a DeLorean sound effect liberally borrowed from you know where) are mildly entertaining and have some heft. The rest is disposable junk.