Does Masters of the Universe "have the power?" The short answer is ... nope.

When it comes to reboots, requels, and the like, people often ask, “When is enough enough?” The answer, of course, is never. As long as there’s a chance that people will pay to watch and buy the tie-in merchandise, Hollywood will always be willing to risk spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an established property rather than a new, potentially “risky” idea. And let’s be honest: while the term may be new, reboots are not. Dracula, Zorro, Frankenstein, The Three Musketeers, Batman, Superman, and Tarzan all had multiple iterations of the characters before most movies and TV shows were even in color.

            That being said, modern Hollywood lives off a diet of reboots, requels, and franchises these days. Some of them, of course, have turned out great. Others, not so much.

            Masters of the Universe, based on the famed 80’s animated series, is a bloated, unfunny, and largely uninteresting misfire. A pretty bad film based on, if we’re to be honest, a cartoon that wasn’t very good itself. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Masters of the Universe as a child. Loved the cartoon, loved the toys. One of my standout memories as a child is my parents surprising me with the Castle Grayskull playset waiting for me in the living room as I came out of the bath. If my foggy memory serves me well, they had been unable to get it at Christmas and surprised me with it sometime later. I remember, in the way that children do, how the box seemed enormous to my tiny eyes, just as the action figures seemed huge and unwieldly in my tiny hands.

            But childhood, right or wrong, is precisely the issue with these kinds of things. Hollywood banks on and fans expect that same childlike wonder when they watch these things, often feeling betrayed and angry when they don’t (See: Star Wars sequels). The simple fact is, that some things don’t translate to film all that well. Think back, for example, to Popeye, even the beloved Warner Brothers cartoons of yore. Would a “faithful” adaptation of those cartoons, which were by and large extremely politically incorrect by today’s standards play well on film? Probably not.

            In Masters of the Universe, young Prince Adam is sent to Earth, the home planet of his mother, as a sort of refugee after a large attack by Skeletor and his forces. Unlike many such stories- take Kal-El/Clark Kent in Superman, for example- Prince Adam is not ignorant of his true identity. He knows where he comes from and what his destiny is, telling everyone who will listen to him about the magical realm he comes from. Adam doesn’t stay in the “real world” for long, of course. Soon, Eternia comes calling, and he goes home to battle Skeletor and follow his destiny. Sigh.

            Visually, Masters of the Universe looks half a cartoon itself. The CGI and outrageous characters don’t look great, but the biggest problem by far is the humor. It’s forced and, for the most part, unfunny. While I’m sure the filmmakers, in going back and watching the source material, realized there was likely no way they could bring the story to life and make it serious, they tried the tongue-in-cheek approach, perhaps drawing on James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy as inspiration.

            The difference, of course, is that James Gunn excels at taking material that shouldn’t work (talking tree and talking raccoon, anyone?) and injecting it with heart. Viewers, both those familiar with the Guardians and not, liked the characters and even grew to love them. Drax the Destroyer, for example, could easily have been an uninteresting thug, but through Dave Bautista’s performance, his ignorance was endearing. Not so much for the cartoonish characters of Masters of the Universe. To me, the forced humor implies that the filmmakers understood that they were working from source material best suited for its original form – that is, children’s toys and children’s shows – and didn’t work as a film. The result is a $200 million cosplay contest.

            The film tanked at the box office, and while it had a brief resurgence while streaming on Amazon Prime, that has ebbed as well. We should be careful, by the way, when we consider something a “streaming hit,” for as we all know, sitting on our couches and queuing up a free film because we have nothing better to do doesn’t mean it is great. Selecting “Watch Now” is a lot easier than going out to the movies (and cheaper).

            I have heard rumblings about a Thundercats movie, another property I adored as a child, and another one that will likely make a terrible movie.

            Couldn’t be worse than Masters of the Universe, though, could it?