Masters of the Universe

Saw Masters of the Universe, a ridiculous and campy live-action film adaptation of the Masters of the Universe line of toys - note that the filmmakers didn't have the rights to the cartoon, so there's no consistency with anything you might know about, there's no Prince Adam alias or Orko or battle cat.  So in conclusion, you know, this was some Oscar-bait kino right here.  No - this is some deeply silly trash sci-fi and, in spite of all of that self-indulgent silliness, I didn't really like it.

To start with: the film is set on Earth for the most part for budgetary reasons.  There's a few scenes that take place in Eternia, the alternate universe/home planet of He-Man, and those are great, but they soon give way to 1980s teenage romance nonsense, complete with malls, cars, and flights that have to be caught.  It's like if Star Wars just stopped dead to follow the romance between two unrelated Tatooine-ians.  There's also an insufferable ugly/cute old alien man who can help everyone get back to Eternia, but he's awful.  Just the worst nexus of cloying and gross.

It's not all bad however - the stuff on Eternia is legitimately okay verging on good.  There's stormtroopers and giant halls and robed, pale evil guys - it's clearly trying to rip off Star Wars, but it's a good rip-off.  I can enjoy the high fantasy and strangeness of a space opera and this effectively delivers.  All of the villains stay behind (thank god) on Eternia so there's a steady drip of good imagery.  Similarly, Dolph Lundgren prances about wearing leather straps, so that's sort of nice.

Unfortunately, this really isn't enough to save the film.  The film focuses too much on He-Man et al on 1980s Earth.  There's no fish-out-water fun, just dour heroics chasing MacGuffins and big-haired teens doing who cares what.  There's not even a connection to the larger He-Man-iverse since they only got rights from Hasbro for the toy likenesses.  Just a muddly mess that wound up (partially) killing the studio that produced it.  It would have been more entertaining if I had been more drunk.