Masters of the Universe

Director: Travis Knight
Starring: Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba, Jared Leto, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Charlotte Riley, Morena Baccarin, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Jon Xue Zhang, Sam C. Wilson, Sasheer Zamata, Christian Vunipola, Christiaan Bettridge, James Wilkinson, Kojo Attah, James Apps, Stephen Adentan, Kristen Wiig, Gary Martin, Tom Wilton, Artie Wilkinson-Hunt, Eire Farrell
Running Time: 140 min.
Rating: PG-13

**This Review Contains Plot Spoilers**

★★½ (out of ★★★★)     

The biggest challenge in making a new Masters of the Universe movie was always going to be finding the right tone. Either you fully commit to capturing the sense of silly fun that defined the 80's toy line and cartoon series or more seriously embrace the mystical fantasy elements as if it were a continuation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Obviously, there are significant drawbacks to either approach, with each potentially alienating different segments of the audience. It also helps explain why we haven't seen any live-action attempts at tackling this material since 1987's poorly received cult flop starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella. 

Unlike Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or G.I. Joe, Mattel's slightly older MOTU franchise only peaked for a few years in the early to mid 80's, and aside from Kevin Smith's recent Netflix Revelation series, hasn't reinvented itself since. So for those wondering who this updated He-Man movie is "supposed to be for," few candidates seem better suited to tackle it than Bumblebee director Travis Knight, who briefly resuscitated one ailing retro franchise when Transformers was down for the count. But in paying tribute to the original Filmation series and introducing this world to a new, younger generation of fans, Knight does something few could have guessed. He tries a little too hard, resulting in a film that's almost too clever and subversive for its own good, but still sort of fun.  

On the planet Eternia, a young Prince Adam is being trained for battle alongside his friend Teela's adoptive father and the king's Man-At-Arms, Duncan (Idris Elba). Weak and undersized, he progresses slowly as his parents King Randor (James Purefoy) and Queen Marlena (Charlotte Riley) worry about the future prospects of a son who can't even defend himself, much less their people. But when the evil, skull faced Skeletor (Jared Leto) attacks their city with right-hand woman Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie) by his side, Adam's parents are taken while Duncan's brutally injured by mercenary cyborg Trapjaw (Sam C. Wilson). Hoping to protect the young boy, Eternia's Sorceress (Morena Baccarin) sends Adam through a portal to Earth, entrusting him with the coveted Sword of Power, which he loses during his trip.

Fifteen years later, an adult Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) is living in Oklahoma with friend and roommate Hussein (Christian Vunipola). Now working in human resources, he clings to childhood memories of Eternia. having drawn sketches and come up with descriptively cartoonish nicknames for those he once knew, such as Fisto (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), Ram-Man (Jon Xue Zhang), Mekaneck (James Wilkinson) and Moss Man (Stephen Adentan). 

Though returning home is impossible without the sword, Adam receives a tip on its possible whereabouts, bringing him face-to-face with Skeletor's vicious Beast Man (Gary Martin). Rescued by Teela (Camila Mendes), Adam is taken back to an unrecognizably decaying Eternia decimated by Skeletor's rule. Now with the help of Teela, Duncan and the rest of the crew, he'll need to summon the power of Grayskull to vanquish Skeletor for good. 

Seeing that classic MGM lion logo replaced by the green, roaring Battle Cat makes it difficult for He-Man fans to not feel an optimistic rush when the opening chords of Brian May and Daniel Pemberton's chill inducing throwback theme, "Eternia" hits. To say it's all downhill from there is an overstatement, but it definitely qualifies as a mixed bag of hits and misses. 

Despite atrocious visual effects and CG backdrops that remain a distraction throughout, the film starts on a relatively promising note with Adam's origin story baring more than a passing resemblance to Superman's. After being sent to Earth for protection, the script jumps ahead, allowing us to speculate how "Adam Glenn" acclimated himself as a parentless child. Instead, we get what amounts to an Office Space parody, where as an adult he's going through the motions of an HR job and drawing the ire of his condescending boss Suzie (Sasheer Zamata). 

Adam's office scenes are the film's weakest link, if only because the four credited writers keep  hammering the gag into the ground. These references even carry over into Adam's later return to Eternia and eventual transformation into He-Man, becoming the centerpiece of a plot that already seems desperate for laughs. But while more time is spent exploring Adam's "normal" existence on Earth than fans will prefer, it at least culminates in a thrilling highway action sequence that re-introduces a now adult Teela.

You'd think the joking would gradually subside when Adam starts to recognize the responsibility put before him, and though his physical metamorphosis into He-Man is a highlight, there isn't much of a change beyond the costume. And with no firm line differentiating the personas, Adam's whiny goofiness persists, leaving Galitzine to play this as a farce. Teela's exasperated reactions to his persisting insecurity reflect that, with the warrior goddess frequently rolling her eyes in disbelief, remaining reluctantly hopeful he'll maybe rise to the occasion. So are we.  

A fantastic Camila Mendes doesn't misstep once in consistently portraying Teela as a formidable bad ass who might care a little more for her childhood friend than she's willing to admit. Or maybe not, considering all the babysitting she has to do for him during their adventure. This also extends to her dad, Duncan, who's now a disheveled alcoholic seemingly stricken with PTSD in the years following Trap Jaw's attack. 

With a wisecracking Roboto (voiced by Kristen Wiig) by his side, the former Man-At-Arms aims to dust off the uniform and return to fighting form. And while it happens rather abruptly, Idris brings vulnerability and gravitas to Duncan, as he and Mendes successfully convey the challenges of repairing their broken father-daughter bond. For a short while, he even rubs off positively on his former pupil, helping Adam find some inner strength, at least until his quirkiness takes center stage again during the story's most crucial juncture. 

Adam's nicknaming of Eternia characters is another joke that probably looked great on paper but doesn't play nearly as well on screen. One minute Fisto and Ram-Man are deeply offended by their monikers, only to later do an about face and embrace it during a cringeworthy pep talk from Adam that has us questioning how he really felt about his HR job. For someone who supposedly despised it, he sure loves talking about all the motivational lessons it instilled, causing him to come across as a slightly more sincere version of his nightmare boss, complete with the same politically correct corporate speak. 

As Skeletor, Jared Leto again proves (as he did in Tron: Ares), that the frequent complaints about his casting have little to do with his on screen performance. In fact, no one would have a clue it's Leto behind that digitized skull face and blue muscled body suit had his name not been advertised. But since it was, there's an uproar, discounting the reality that his interpretation of this iconic villain ranks alongside Mendes' work as one of the film's very best aspects. 

Replacing the cartoon version's nasally inflection with a Shakespearean British accent, Leto strikes just the right balance of frightening menace and comedy, like a Skeletor meme brought to life. And how the VFX team can so compellingly capture this character's look but fail hard in their depiction of a mostly absent Cringer/Battle Cat (voiced by Tom Wilton) is a mystery. But the reframing of Evil-Lyn as an abused, submissive underling who's a step away from turning on Skeletor is inspired, if underdeveloped, depriving us of more Alison Brie, who's great in this.

Possessing the sword and seemingly ready to take out Skeletor, complications and even a couple of deaths arise for He-Man as the movie drags its feet before arriving at the final showdown. And while the writers still can't resist turning this battle into a stand-up routine that calls back to Adam's experience in "conflict resolution," there's a saving grace. It comes in the form of a mind meld sequence where Skeletor hilariously inserts himself into Adam's memories and Knight finally nails that tone he seemed to be searching for throughout.  

Extremely difficult to adapt, this is about as entertaining as it gets for a flawed movie based on a nostalgic toy franchise. Still, it's tempting to wonder what the results could have been with writers less interested in telling everyone how embarrassed they are by the original property. It's as if they seem desperate to make fun of the material before anyone else can, proving they're in on the joke. Some of that humor works, but the constant need to infuse every scene with it starts to takes its toll, especially when the stakes are highest. 

In laying the groundwork for a sequel, post-credit teases involving Orko and She-Ra will now be remembered as mere footnotes, which is a shame considering how all the pieces were already there. Even when a story's ridiculous, audiences shouldn't be constantly reminded of that when they only want to escape, as has been proven with movies ten times more preposterous than this. But whether longtime fans feel betrayed or newer viewers roll their eyes at these characters, it does get a lot right. The music's incredible, certain performances hit in all the ways they should and the plot structure holds up. It's just everything else in between that ends up falling short.           

Prometheus

Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, Charlize Theron, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall
Running Time: 124 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

The term "meet your maker" is interpreted literally in Ridley Scott's polarizing Prometheus, his quasi-prequel to Alien that has both less and more in common with that series than you'd imagine. From the get-go it's clear exactly what kind of science fiction this will be. The smart kind, with big ideas. Whether all the ideas presented are fully explored is a separate issue, but at least enough are, even as I lost count of how many movies those ideas seemed to reference. It's territory we've been in before and there's never much doubt where the story's going, but fortunately this still manages to be effective on its own terms. The film looks great, employing practical style special effects and set design that goes a step further than we're used to seeing in most big budget sci-fi blockbusters. Even just the opening title sequence confirms that. But the story exists in this weird gray area between being presented directly as an Alien prequel and setting up its own philosophical mythology that draws heavily from 2001: A Space Odyssey, it's sequel, 2010, and even something like Mission To Mars. Anyone approaching this looking for extremely deep insights into human existence might be disappointed, but as far as relentless sci-fi, horror adventures go, it ranks high.

The year is 2089 and archeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) have discovered an ancient map in Scotland that connects many cultures and is interpreted by them as an invitation by humanity's "Engineers," or creators, to travel to their distant moon. The mission's  funded by the late Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce in old age make-up), the Weyland Corporation's founder and CEO. After traveling in a state of suspended stasis, Shaw, Holloway and the rest of their Prometheus crew led by Captain Janek (Idris Elba) awaken at their destination in 2093. They meet the mission's director, the emotionally vacant Dr. Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and its monitor, an android named David (Fassbender) who allegedly has no feelings, but  whose behavior and appearance is patterned after Peter O' Toole's T.E. Lawrence from Lawrence of Arabia. During their investigation they get get much more than they bargained for, with a discovery that puts not only their lives in jeopardy, but could potentially threatens the survival of the entire human race. They wanted answers and get them, but it don't come without a price.  

If there's an issue it's in the film's inability to completely break free from the Alien franchise and fully establish itself as its own standalone entity. Of course the pressure was on (at least from a studio marketing perspective) to push this as a "prequel to Alien." In a sense it is, without Scott going so far as to completely acknowledge that. Basically he wants to have his cake and eat it too, which is problematic only when certain Alien elements are jammed into the second and third acts of the film, giving it a different feel than it started with. Scott would have just been better off severing all ties and influence to that franchise, saving the audience some confusion and making for a cleaner finished product. Even the very last shot of the film feels more like a shout-out to fans than anything that organically sprung from the narrative. But if that's the worst problem the film has, I'd still say it's in pretty good shape, especially considering the number of ways this could have gone wrong and come off indistinguishable from the usual big budget sc-fi devoid of ideas. It definitely doesn't deserve to be lumped into that category and nothing about the story or its presentation seems at any point to be unsophisticated, or worse yet, dumbed down to make it more accessible.

The idea of future explorers searching for the human race's origins makes for an engaging start point and it's held together by a couple of really strong performances and fantastic effects work (not to mention a cool 80's throwback sci-fi miniseries-style score from Marc Streitenfeld). Fassbender's performance as David the android already starts as something interesting but only becomes more fascinating when the other characters start pushing him and his true motivations boil to the surface. Jealousy, paranoia and even a certain level of arrogance start to seep through his robotic facade. This is the most obvious homage to 2001's HAL, as a computer begins to show obvious signs of a soul and personality, but with disastrous results for the rest of the crew. Fassbender's meticulousness keeps you wondering whether there is more to this android than just circuits while also making it subtly clear he could just be programmed to follow order and preserve the mission. Either option seems equally disturbing whenever he's on screen. The real emotional android just might be Theron's Dr.Vickers whom she plays as detached ice queen and non-believer to her core, backing the mission strictly as a business decision and nothing more. The faith and belief is supplied by the protagonist, Noomi Rapace's Shaw, who can hang with Sigourney Weaver's Ripley only in so far as the amount of physical punishment she endures. While it isn't fair, the movie seems to want to invite a comparison between the two, making Rapace's performance seem more underwhelming than it actually is. If nothing else, she endures the grossest C-Section you've ever seen performed on film. Idris Elba could have been given more to do as the ships captain, but he's memorable in his few big scenes opposite Theron.

You have to wonder how the public would have reacted to this film had they not known it was in any way tied to the Alien franchise or co-written by Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. Given how some have still inexplicably not gotten over how he ended that series, it's likely many were foaming at the mouth to blame him for any perceived problems with this project. That his script balances issues of faith and science thematically similar to the show's controversial, unfairly maligned finale only gives fans more ammunition to complain, no matter how off-base they are. While the script does definitely lag behind the directing and visual effects, it's only problem is the "been there, done that feel of its premise" and its inability to step out of Alien's shadow despite the film's initial ideas suggesting it could have possibly surpassed it. The jaw-dropping visuals and performances from Fassbender and Theron really stand out as the biggest reasons why it's a success. At the very least, Prometheus is Ridley Scott's best effort in ages and seems more than a worthy of a sequel that can hopefully deviate even more from the original material it's inspired by.