Viking Night: Masters of the Universe
By Bruce Hall
October 27, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
How can you bring the kids into theaters full of hope and excitement, yet ensure the little urchins leave with their hearts shattered and their dreams crushed? Smithers suggests a cynical toy-based cash grab, and for that, you toss him the keys to a brand new Porsche 911 Turbo. But it’s not enough. You need more. Kids love toys, and your goal is to take something they cherish and destroy it before their very eyes, with extreme prejudice. Johnson says his son likes to play with something called a “He-Man,” which is a blonde muscleman with a Prince Valiant haircut who runs around in furry underpants vanquishing evil with his big shiny broadsword.
Because it’s the ‘80s and you’re homophobic, you pose an obvious question - only to be assured that no, it’s not like THAT. But these toys are flying off the shelves, says Johnson, and it’s best to strike while the iron is hot. Before you have time to wonder what someone named “He-Man” was called when he was a baby, he suggests Dolph Lundgren as the lead - an actor every bit as chiseled, blond and emotively vacant as the action figure. For this, you fire Smithers, give Johnson the Porsche, and throw in a condominium in South Beach. By the end of the day, Mattel is on board, the budget has been slashed by a third, and you have a director lined up whose past film credits include...well...nothing, actually.
With your malevolent plan in place, you lean back in your chair and smugly steeple your fingers together as you grant Johnson two minutes with the Coke Pile and have Smithers thrown from the roof. And this, my friends, is how we ended up with Masters of the Universe. Or at least, that’s how I picture it. I haven’t been able to confirm my theory, as the film was such a colossal failure it helped destroy the studio that financed it. More important, it darkened the childhood of anyone in its target demographic, yours truly included. But maybe you’re not old enough to remember He-Man, so allow me to bring you up to speed.
He-Man was a musclebound guy with a Prince Valiant haircut who ran around in furry underpants, vanquishing evil with his big shiny broadsword. He and his allies fought to defend the magical realm of Eternia from Skeletor, who was some kind of bone-faced demon who also ran around in furry underpants and had much cooler friends than He-Man. Now that I think about it, this is all incredibly stupid, but it seemed cool when I was 12, so just deal with it. Anyway, Eternia was a fantastic land of swords and sorcery, lasers and spaceships, mythical beasts and epic battles that spanned the very dimensions of space and time. So naturally, instead of the film taking place THERE, the story is set in a sleepy Los Angeles suburb that looks suspiciously like Culver City, because it totally is.
The movie begins with the aftermath of Skeletor’s (Frank Langella) conquest of Eternia, and his capture of the Sorceress (Christina Pickles), the most powerful...um...sorceress in Eternia. He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) and his cohorts Man-at-Arms (John Cypher) and Teela (Chelsea Field) manage to regroup just in time to cross paths with Gwildor (Billy Barty), an annoying little wizard who serves as the film’s comic relief (as if it needed any), and also happens to hold something called the “Cosmic Key,” an artifact (read: MacGuffin) of indeterminate function that Skeletor needs to complete his victory. Just as Skeletor’s goons close in for the kill, Gwildor activates the Key, conveniently transporting everyone to a far more production budget friendly planet called “Earth.”
Naturally, Skeletor’s minions follow them there, because of course they can track the Key. This doesn’t really seem necessary since Gwildor apparently had it sitting in his living room, and Skeletor totally had his address all along. But if this were the kind of movie that made any sense, He-Man and his friends wouldn’t end up needing the help of plucky teenager Julie Winston (Courteney Cox) and her long suffering boyfriend Kevin (Robert Duncan McNeill). I say “long suffering” because Julie is very needy, emotional and whiny, and never stops blubbering about her parents, who died in a plane crash. This would be sad, except she kind of never shuts up about it, to the point where you kind of wish someone would put a sock in her mouth and shove her into a closet.
Call me callous, but it feels less like a story arc and more like a manipulative plot device serving as a substitute for depth. But Kevin is a better man than I am, and puts up with it anyway. And when he stumbles upon the Cosmic Key, he mistakes it for a musical instrument because, well, of course he does. So when Team Skeletor arrives to settle the score, they find themselves facing off against He-Man, his Eternian allies, and a pair of lovesick teenagers struggling with their shared identity crisis. And, for good measure, character actor James Tolkan (Back to the Future, Top Gun) plays an acerbic police detective who does little more than get in the way and crack wise, serving as a human counterpoint to Gwildor’s aggravating antics.
I don’t want to sound like I’m being unnecessarily harsh or snarky, because that’s the laziest kind of review to write. But let’s be honest - very little attempt was made to serve the film’s subject matter in any real way, and setting the film on Earth instead of Eternia was a pretty transparent contrivance to save money on the production. Dolph Lundgren was great as the hulking heavy in Rocky IV, but that’s only because Ivan Drago was literally a robot made of meat. Here, he’s an appalling burden in every scene, not quite as offensive but also not entirely unlike the act of vanity casting that was Richard Pryor in Superman III. To be fair, his obvious befuddlement may be due to the fact that it’s hard to figure out how to play a hero who couldn’t be more out of place if he was surrounded by Smurfs.
It’s difficult even to point an accusing finger at Gary Goddard. It would be the first - and last - major motion picture he ever directed, and while it’s easy to assume he was in over his head, it’s also clear that the entire production was an ad-hoc improvisation meant to revive a then struggling toy line than a realistic attempt to make a quality film. Cannon Films had a reputation for taking on dubious material and cutting corners, and it showed. Any way you look at it, Masters of the Universe was a misanthropic cash grab by a desperate production company looking for a hit at any cost, and it failed miserably on almost every level. Probably the only good thing I can say about it is that despite the fact that his makeup looks like he put it on himself, Frank Langella is clearly having the time of his life playing Skeletor.
I’d be willing to watch him reprise the character in a Space Ghost style talk show just for the hell of being able to say it really happened. In the end, I suppose Masters didn’t damage anyone’s career too permanently; Goddard went back to being a successful show designer, Frank Langella is still an accomplished thespian, and even Lundgren is a brilliant chemical engineer, as well as the worst thing about The Expendables. Sadly, only Courteney Cox was never heard from again (and she will be missed). Masters of the Universe is nothing short of an abomination, worth experiencing only if you are confined to bed and have no will to live, and just need something to laugh at as you slip away into eternity. And if you used to run Cannon Films and you’re reading this now, know that you and Johnson were right.
One bleak autumn in 1987, millions of parents successfully used this movie to salt their popcorn with the tears of their own children. Well done, sirs. Well done.