Movies-TV

my first movie

This was my first movie to see on the big screen. I was nine and my brother seven. We live in Houston. There was a General Cinema not far from our house. I remember my Dad's beeper going off. Can you imagine what those looked like nearly twenty years ago? The movie is over and we're leaving I saw some lift his right arm in the air saying loudly "I have the Power!". So it was not a big box office hit. I don't care I and my brother loved it and always will. I can not imagine Rocky as He-Man. Uh-uh. Who could not like Gwildor? Does anyone remember Willow? He was in it. No matter what movie I see Frank Langella in I will always remember him as Skeletor. I would have like to have seen Masters of the Universe Part 2.

Awesome fantasy adventure

Just as some movies that should be great turn out to be awful, some movies that should be awful turn out to be great - Masters of the Universe. Unfortunately, for a film that's based on a cartoon that today's 20-somethings used to watch in the 1980's, none of the said 20-somethings are going to admit to liking it now. Few will give it a chance and realize the direction is good, the acting is good, the music is good, that it's exciting, funny, scary, suitably epic and absolutely action-packed and that it looks fantastic. But Superhero Cinema does. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a hugely successful mid-80's cartoon based on a line of action figures. The success of each fed the other, as well as a popular comicbook and loads of other merchandise. Finally in 1987 came the big one: the motion picture.What looks like suicide at first glance - converting a cartoon based on action figures into a full-length feature - gets more appealing when you look at thes ource material closer. The cartoon is a epic hybrid of fantasy and sci-fi, with ancient castles and sorcerers mixing with laser guns and cyborgs. It also has a very mythic feel, mixing Ancient Greece-era monsters and challenges with fairy tale locations.There are also hordes of exotic characters - warriors, mutants, monsters, magicians of every description, so the film makers could pick the coolest ones to bring to the screen. The ones they've chosen are He-Man and his arch enemy Skeletor (obviously), amazon-type female warrior Teela and her dad Man-At -Arms, the Sorceress of Grayskull, Skeletor's second in command Evil Lyn (which is always pronounced 'Evil-In'), and Beastman. Added to these are four characters that were created for the film - Gwildor, a dwarf-like inventor, Karg, a cross between Captain Hook and a bat, snake-like Sauron, and Blade, a sword and knife-obsessed slaphead. So that's eleven fantasy characters running about, which is a pretty good total.Masters of the Universe succeeds because it takes the cartoon and adapts not it's superficial qualities, but it's essence into a movie, turning it into a mature sci-fi/fantasy adventure. This is where so many comic and cartoon based movies fail. They don't adapt their source material properly to make a successful feature film. You need to make the movie a natural progression from what it's based on, altering the look enough so it looks acceptable in real action, altering the characters into real people, choosing actors who can give real performances. It's not simply dressing superstars up as characters from a comic or cartoon, it's re-imagining the ideas as a movie. MotU does this perfectly. You can fault it as a film itself, of course, but you can't fault it as an adaption.The production design is superb, with some superbly realized sets and costumes. Everything has been adapted to look more realistic on the big screen. The cast give uniformly decent performances. Nobody lets the side down - these are all 3D characters, not cartoons. Dolph Lungren proves he's one of the European bodybuilder brigade who can act. Frank Langella gives an outstanding performance as Skeletor, his powerful presence almost bursting out of the TV and into your living room. Langella gives a shining example to all actors portraying comicbook and cartoon characters in live action. There is a pervading sense of dread whenever he appears, especially during Castle Grayskull sequences, and the script gives him some awesome lines which he delivers with pure evil dripping from his voice.The monsters are pretty bloody scary, especially for a family film, especially the Beastman (who's had a 'the' added to his name). The sequence where they invade a school gym and chase Julie around it is excellent, far more exciting and scary than similar chases in many horror films (including some of those Courtney Cox has been in). It's also, like the rest of the film, surprisingly violent, as the bad guys attack Julie with swords, claws, laser guns and high velocity darts. That she manages to escape is not unbelievable at all, because of the way the chase is staged - it's just a relief she gets out of there, the goal of any such chase scene. The sheer ammount of bad guys that the small band of heroes has to face adds greatly to the drama.Setting half of the movie on Earth has it's advantages and disadvantages. It does give the film a human component, and two ordinary teenagers to be pulled into the adventure with. It also makes the monsters scarier - rather than being in a distant galaxy, they are in the neighbourhood, viciously attacking people and destroying whatever they come across. On the other hand, it would have been cool to see some more of the war torn Eternia and the planet's weird inhabitants and locations, but MotU had a relatively small budget, so that sort of stuff was off limit anyway. A little too much time is spent on the almost soap-opera angle of Julie and Kevin, but it helps flesh out their characters to make them believable.MotU is also packed with action, and we do mean packed. There is an outbreak of violence every 15 minutes or so, usually even less, and there is variety and imagination among the content, unlike many action films, which consist of repetetive shoot outs and nothing more. It could possibly be said that it's quantity over quality, as some of it, particularly the shoot-outs, are badly filmed, and none of the action ever reaches adrenalin pumping. However, it's good enough, in-yer-face and quite exciting to watch, with He-Man taking out hordes of bad guys with his sword, laser beams everywhere, mass destruction and some good old rough and tumble. And all the action grows organically from the story - none of it seems put in simply because the movie needed an action scene at a certain point.One of MotU's greatet assets is it's atmosphere. The sense of an intergalactic civil war is tangible, as is the sheer menace of the villains, the desperation of the good guys, the growing sense of doom as Skeletor captures the Cosmic Key. There is a cower-behind-the-sofa scariness similar to that of TV's Doctor Who.If Masters of the Universe was re-released at cinemas this summer, people would realize how good it is compared to the blockbuster summer fare we get these days. And all for $17m, which was hardly anything, even in 1987.

Stunk then and now

I went to this 1987 movie when I was little figuring I would see a reasonable fascimille of one of my favirote cartoon show reincarnated into a live action and big screen production.

Wrong

Attributing my first disappointment to youth and inexperience, I rented this movie as a young adult and found that it was still unbelievably campy and dense. What easily could have been a standard-setting movie for entertaining the whole family was allowed to degenerate into an overblown and overhyped production.

Lundgreen does look physically stunning as the protagonist, but looks alone fail to save this film from the dreaded early morning b-movie status it has since accumulated. The costumes are generally well done-but the dialouge construction and delivery leave much to be desired in terms of quality and content. There is only so much the actors can attempt to improve in this script.

Recognizing that the studio attempted to make the adventure pleasing for adults and teens as well as children, I never less feel saddened that the premise of the cartoon (which is how most people came into contact with the He-Man franchise) was dumped in favor of a less successful storyline and characterization. The losers were of course the fans of all ages who expected to see an awesome movie staring one of their cartoon favirotes.

Perhaps it was never destined to be in the ranks of Gone With the Wind and Casablanca, but it would not have hurt to excercise a little more quality control over the creation and production of this product.

If there is some small consolation to be pulled from all of this, it is that the She-ra spin-off was not included in the production because it likely would have been saddled with the same camp and cheese characterizing this film.

so corny, yet so much fun!

This movie was once called, "a Star Wars for the eighties". Now, I'd have to disagree with that, because this movie is a bit too silly to be compared to Star Wars, which was a very lofty title. Nevertheless, this movie is just plain fun to watch. It's quite different from the cartoon, which is kinda disappointing, but in the long run nobody cares. It has everything you would expect from a campy, and pretty bizarre, comic-book style world. A super-strong hero with a magic sword, an array of weird bounty hunters out to get him, a diabolical fiend whose body is nothing but bones, a magic trans-dimensional key that sounds like a synthesizer from the Sharper Image, a pair of naive humans who are fascinated by the new world they've sicovered, and a wild showdown in a futuristic palace. You can't take it too seriously, but that just makes it all the more enjoyable. See it!

These plastic action-figurines are alive!

War has broken out on the planet Eternia and the evil Skeletor has taken prison the Sorceress of Greyskull castle in the hope of capturing her powers, so he can rule Eternia and finally the universe. Though leading the resistance is He-man and small group of freedom fighters. They rescue Gwildor who has created a device called the cosmic key that Skeletor could use to move between galaxies. To escape the overwhelming forces, He-man and his friends are transported to Earth. Two earthlings stumble across the key and soon find themselves caught in between a universal battle of good and evil.This one definitely brings back mixed memories. I loved the TV cartoon series of He-man and collected the toy figurines (which the movie is based on) when was a young kid. So naturally when the movie came out, there was no doubting that I wouldn't go out and see it with my father. "Masters of the Universe" was actually the first film I saw at the cinemas and the only time I ever walked out of one. Firstly: Skeletor and his minions totally freaked me out. Call me a wuss, but loved how they were represented as bumbling villains in the cartoons. Secondly; I didn't particularly get into the serious direction it went for and the whole mythology the cartoon series drew up was severally lacking. The magic and humour was nowhere to be seen on this live feature length presentation.This was my third viewing of it and I still found it to be an averagely uninspired and bloated clunker that somewhat resembles that of a "Star Wars"-"Flash Gordon" hybrid. If it wasn't for Frank Langella's theatrically imposing portrayal as the malevolently power-hungry Skeletor and a lusciously icy Meg Foster as the vindictively sly Evil-Lyn (Yep, I don't mind how viciously wicked they are now). This would have just been another forgettable fantasy fodder.The costumes and make-up (especially Skeletor's mercenaries) do look vividly striking and convincing, but the variably dazzling special effects with its pyrotechnics light show and grand scale treatment became dreadfully cheesy, but I guess this made it mildly fun and diverting. The budget is reasonably minor and you can honestly tell, despite with its striking set designs for Eternia and this is why most of the story takes place on earth. Director Gar Goddard does quite an generic job with David Odell's scratchily rapid screenplay (with an uncalled for sappy conclusion), but the speedy story does have its moments and Goddard generates a couple exciting flashes of creative gusto. This is mostly when the villains are on the screen or when James Tolken's slightly humorous Detective Lubic gets caught up in the mayhem. The script is singly minded, but there a few risible lines delivered with strenuous conviction by Langella. The glistening gold Dolph Lundgren looks the part and does the action scenes quite well, but he does provides nothing but a monotonously laconic performance. Courtney Cox's debut film role is nothing spectacular, but reasonable. John Cypher as Man-at-arms and Chelsea Field as Teela provide sound contributions. Robert Duncan McNeill's rabbit in the headlights performance is pretty weak and Billy Barty very much annoys as Gwildor. Bill Conti's corny and grand sounding music score is easily influenced by "Star Wars" musical score and I got that feeling it tweak around with the "Superman" one too."Masters of the Universe" is a weird live-action cartoon that's full of hiccups, but with its overblown nature and fast pacing it amuses without much fuss.

Worth The Watch

A lot of He-Man fans think this movie was terrible. I don't. Sure, it could have been much better, but for any He-Man fan, this movie is worth watching. I liked the idea of bringing the MOTU characters to Earth, however, there should have been more action on Eternia and a little less on Earth. They should have showed Snake Mountain, for instance, and how Skeletor took over Greyskull. I liked the new characters that were added to the movie, but I don't think they should have replaced the original characters from the cartoon. This movie certainly could have been done better (and I think a remake is called for), but all in all, it's not a bad movie. If you haven't watched it, you should at least give it a try.

By the power of grayskull!

Ok, so the movie did not stay true to the cartoon. This is still a kickin' movie. He-Man, the strongest man in the universe, and hero to all who live on the mystical planet of Eternia, comes to the big screen. He-Man comes from one of Mattel Toys biggest sellers in their history, and toy history. The line was called 'Masters of the Universe'. Mattel spun off the line into a cartoon for the small screen that was produced by animation group, Filmation. The cartoon and toys was so popular amoung youngsters and even adults, that a live action movie came about.

Now, I have read the original script for the movie. Much better than what actually made it to screen. The only fault of the movie is too much Earth. People want to see it on Eternia. But, the movie is still cool, with great effects and a nice score by Bill Conti.

The true highlight of the movie is Frank Langella as Skeletor. He was made to play the role. He is very scarey and at most very evil in the movie.

Also, Friends fans of Courtney Cox will love the movie too, she is in it as Earth girl Julie who finds the Cosmic Key and aids the Eternians on Earth.

I give the movie 5 stars because that is what it should get. I am a huge He-Man and She-Ra fan and this movie is part of He-Man's history.

By the power of grayskull.... YOU have the power!

No Power Here!

First of all, let me say that I LOVE the Masters of the Universe/He-Man cartoons. So I rented this movie one time thinking it would be at least half as campy, and goofy as the cartoons. Wrong!

This is one of the few videos I have ever rented that I actually fast-forwarded through because it was so boreing!

Dolph looks nothing like the cartoon He-Man, and the Skeletor was absolutley HORRIBLE!!!! I don't know how this movie could be any worse. The acting is terrible, and so is the action.

This looks like an after-school special He-Man style. Don't waste your money on this one...

Cheesy but Enjoyable Sci Fi Adventure!

I feel a bit guilty, reading some of the other reviews posted, but I liked MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE! Perhaps because I was never 'into' the cartoon series, I am more forgiving of characters or plot devices left out, and I certainly recognize that it is derivative of both STAR WARS and FLASH GORDON (particularly in Bill Conti's bombastic musical score), but there is so much energy in the film, such abundant confidence in the ultimate victory of Good versus Evil, and such a wonderfully campy performance by Frank Langella as rubber-masked Skeletor that I get a kick out of it, whenever it airs.Physically, no actor could be more perfect as the hero, He-Man, than ROCKY 4's Dolph Lundgren. At 6'6" (that's two inches taller than JOHN WAYNE, trivia fans!), with flowing blond hair and blue eyes, the 30-year old Swedish actor combined a Herculean physique (if Marvel Comics' "The Mighty Thor" is ever filmed, he would be perfect as the Thunder God), with a knack for weapons that would earn him the future title of 'King' of 'B' action flicks. True, his English was so poor at the time of filming that his dialog was kept to a minimum, but who watches this kind of film for dialog, anyway?Supporting Lundgren's He-Man is crusty veteran soldier, Duncan (Man-at-Arms), played by character actor Jon Cypher, who makes up for He-Man's taciturn nature by reminiscing constantly about a life in the military (with observations EVERY soldier has made, through history), and his daughter, Teela (pretty Chelsea Field, one of the busiest actresses of the decade), serving as a "Xena Lite" for the proceedings.Opposing the Forces of Good with the irreplaceable Langella is one of my favorite actresses, Meg Foster, as the sublimely wicked Evil-Lyn, using her piercing green eyes and barely suppressed sexuality to great advantage. With an array of the cartoon's more colorful villains in support of Skeletor and Evil-Lyn, He-Man has his hands full!The plot involves a tonal 'key', created by a dwarf, Gwildor (screen legend Billy Barty, in an initially irritating, but eventually endearing role), that can transport individuals wherever they desire. Stolen by Evil-Lyn, Skeletor uses it to capture He-Man's Castle Greyskull and it's resident Sorceress ("St. Elsewhere" alum Christina Pickles). With a hidden prototype 'key', Gwildor leads our heroes into the castle...where they are nearly captured by Skeletor, before the dwarf throws together some random numbers, and transports our heroes...to Earth.The 'key' is lost, as the four arrive on our planet, to be found by aspiring musician Kevin Corrigan ("Star Trek: Voyager" star Robert Duncan McNeill) who thinks it's a Japanese musical instrument! With girlfriend Julie Winston (future "Friends" superstar Courteney Cox, looking young and gorgeous), the pair are astonished by the musical complexities of the device, unaware that each time it is 'played', Skeletor is getting a better 'fix' of it's location. Eventually, our planet is pinpointed, and Skeletor leads an army of villains to subdue us, and capture He-Man. With great comic support by bald character actor James Tolkan (BACK TO THE FUTURE), as a bewildered police detective, some spectacular 'set' pieces (Skeletor's invasion force, backed by 'Darth Vader'ish music, is a highlight), and an ending that concludes that "ANYTHING is possible", MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is great cheesy fun! Certainly, the film is not a classic, but if you accept it on it's own terms, I think you might find it to be a lot of fun!

I have the Power!! Oh wait. No i don't.

I was 9 when this first came out. I was amazed, excited and in awe. It
was he-man! In real life! But then I started to think 'Wheres battle
cat?' 'where are all skeletors henchmen?' 'why the hell isn't this set
on eternia?' 'He-man can pick up mountains. Why is he getting his ass
so beaten?'. And so it continued. The annoying midget took the place of
Orko, was the icing on the cake!

The problem with this film is, basically, that it was released 2 years
too late. He-Man was hot in 1985. His popularity was on the wane.
They also changed far too much. I know they probably relocated the
story to Earth for budgetary reasons (a scrap yard is a cheaper place
to have a battle than a 'mystical swamp'), but they could have at least
kept skeletors old henchmen. Only Beastman survived and he was pretty
lame. And don't get me started on the others.

Aside from its cheapness and derivative nature, there are so many
things wrong with this film. It is so unambitious. He-Man had the
potential to weave a believable universe. It had established characters
and conventions, it had mysticism and technology and a super hero lead.
When you change that much you please no one. Fans of the original are
disappointed and non fans have no interest. The only decent change they
made was to include Mr Strickland from back to the future. That guy
kicks ass!

At least in the She-Ra movie they kept things the same. Now that was a
tie in (note: Irony).

A lot of fun! Some great performances as well...

I first saw this movie way back in the 80's, and recently got hold of the DVD. I'm pleased to say I still enjoyed it as much as I did back then! While the decision to place part of the story in 1980's suburban America, planet Earth, was no doubt a way to keep the budget low, the end result is still a lot of fun, and the main characters manage to stay pretty close to their original characters. Naturally, though, I'd loved to have seen some more of Eternia instead. Unfortunately, the promised sequel never came to be.Frank Langella is simply brilliant; his bigger-then-life portrayal of Skeletor may be different from what they did in the TV series, but it works great. He commands every scene he is in, and his performance is powerful yet subtle at certain moments. Wonderful! By the way, be sure to watch until the end credits are over...Dolph Lundgren, while perhaps not quite the eloquent thespian Langella is, does make a formidable old-fashioned hero.

BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!

Cast your mind back to the early-mid eighties when He-man was every child's hero. Birthdays and christmas presents were adorned with action figures, books and various other spin-offs from the cartoon. Afternoons were filled with the excitement of watching, what to me was, the greatest show on earth. School playtimes were passed by battling your He-man with your best friends Skeletor and your dreams were filled of the magical Eternia. But it all had to end, we grew up, new cartoons such as the Ninja Turtles were favored by the new kids, Donatello and leaonardo replaced He-man, Orko and the rest of the Masters of the Univers Crew. And today, he-man is almost forgotten by the majority.

But in 1987, Warner gave us something to remeber the great man, with the theatrical release of Masters of the Universe. The film can be enjoyed by (supposed) adults like me, without the scorn of immaturity accusations that would be hailed at you if you were to reclaim your He-man collection from the attic, dust off your figures and start fighting them.

Masters of The Universe was a good attempt at bringing to life the cartoon, however it could have been better had it stayed a little closer to the original scipts. Dolph Lundgren is an inspired choice to play He-man and Frank Langella is equally suited in his role as Skeletor. However, with the exception of the Sorceress, Teela, Man of Arms and Evil Lyn, there really are few of the original characters. I was extremely dissapointed when I first saw this, that my personal favourite character, Orko (that little alien Jester thing) wasn't in it. Also He-man doesn't flit between being the normal human prince Adam and then turning into He-man as was the case in the cartoon, remember the immortal phrase "by the power of Greyskull" animated by Adam holding up his sword and then becoming He-man. I also felt that not enough effort was put into Eternia, there is little evidence of the fantastic landscapes and castles that the cartoons and books portrayed Eternia as having. The film, for the majority is set on Earth, after a key which enables time and location travel is stolen by Skeletor. A battle ensues on Earth between He-man and Skeletor and is then continued back in Skeletors lare in Eternia, where Skeletor is holding the sorceress prisoner. It is up to He-man to defeat Skeletor, the Lord of Destruction and save the sorceress.

The film may not have an Oscar winning script, but the actors do a good job (look out for Courtney Cox in an earley role). The plot is simple, but this is what you would expect and even want from such a film, after all it is based on a childrens cartoon. The movie is, despite the few minor criticisms that I made, extremely enjoyable, all eighties kids will enjoy this nostalgic trip. To me this movie will remain as one of my fondest in my video collection...the last testament to my childhood.

Masters of the Universe? They Could Not Even Master This Film.

Much like the equally anemic "The Transformers: The Movie", "Masters of the Universe" is a terrible ploy by high-powered executives to sell more of their product (in this case action toys). Dolph Lundgren (who had a little celebrity after "Rocky IV") is He-Man, a mystical warrior in another world who is trying to save his universe from his evil enemies (Frank Langella and Meg Foster). Soon a device is created that Langella wants, but the heroes are able to use it to escape to Earth before he is able to close in. Naturally the planet is strange to them and the magical device has fallen into the hands of humans Courteney Cox and Robert Duncan McNeill. Thus a race starts to get the device back between the good guys and the bad ones. The production values would like to be higher than they are as the film-makers tried to get youngsters in with crazed visual effects that look hopelessly dated. Parents were also suckered in by this mess and the production ended up being a mild success, but not good enough for further installments. Thank goodness for that anyway. 2 stars out of 5.

One of the best films of the 80's

Masters Of The Universe is a brilliant movie. It may not be exactly the same as the animated TV series, but that does not matter. The storyline was quite good too. I think that right now would be the perfect time to make a sequel. If they did, they would obviously get people who saw The Phantom Menace earlier this year going to see it. They could even have a computer generated Orko and Battle Cat. I give this film a 10/10.

excellent

The movie was in Brand new condition and the quality was great, i would definilty do business again. The price was acceptional as well!

Its okay, but a big disappointment....

As a huge fan of He-man and She-ra, I was disappointed with this movie. The big problem- the setting! It was a big mistake to go with Earth. Personally, I wanted to see how the people live on Eternia. We could have also seen interesting creatures and learned about a new world. Some might want to claim lack of technology, but there were plenty of special effects films made prior to the computer animation we know today. If Yoda could be brought to life back in the first trilogy from 1981 surely someone could have made a realistic Orko. But back on the subject of MOTU on earth, they could have also made a more interesting storyline if they insisted using Earth. He-man's mother, Queen Marlena, is FROM earth! The movie team obviously had no problem making this a more ADULT oriented film by adding more violence and drama, so they should have gone all the way and made it even more dramatic. It would have been interesting to see had Marlena been with the group how she'd react to being reunited with her old family on Earth. It would have been a nice sub-plot. Another thing I hated was the costumes. He-man with a cape? Yuck. And don't get me started on Teela's outfit. Then there's the introduction of new characters as opposed to using our favorite ones from the cartoon. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking there were leftover toys that Mattel needed to sell so they pushed for the film to use these new guys.

Anyways, as a fan, I'll watch the movie sometimes when its on cable, but it was a disappointment then and its still a disappointment as an adult. The dialogue is cheesy and not in a good 80s way. The storyline lacks imagination, and one other thing to complain about...the laser guns! The people who made this film obviously didn't pay attention to the title--MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. There are good and evil warriors with specific skills and techniques they use for combat as any MOTU fan knows and for the characters to constantly use laser guns was just a slap in the face. Get this film if you're a fan one of the actors in it like Dolph, Courteney Cox, etc...but other than that, I don't find anything rewarding out of this film.

High Camp at Its Best!

No, Masters of the Universe is not a Master-piece. But, it is an earnest adaptation of the hit animated series and toy line from the 80s. Don't take this film seriously, because if you will, you'll only be disappointed. It is based on a cartoon and an extensive array of action figures, and that is how it is portrayed on screen. The movie is a great time, full of escapist, Star Wars-esque adventure.
Lundgren is physically capable in his role as He-Man (without his Prince Adam alter ego), but look for Frank Langella as the sinister Skeletor to steal the show. Langella rules the screen every time his excellently made up skull-like face is depicted. You can really tell Langella had a terrific time making this movie, and he serves to help save the film. While I would have preferred the film to be set more on Eternia's surreal landscape, the Earth as a battlezone motif was a departure from the cartoonish roots. No, Masters of the Universe is not a well-made or even a good movie, but is great fun, and that's just the only way to look at it.

Flawed, but ONE GREAT performance

This movie could have been so much better, if it stuck to more of the original idea's from the movie (prince Adam, the king and Queen, more of the cartoon's villains) then we could have had a real classic on our hands, if only a lot more of the film was spent on eternia, as opposed to earth, maybe an extra half an hour showing Skeletors taking over of grayskull in full along with more scenes of He-man and co in Eternia.BUT, what we are left with is still an effective movie whilst some of the characters fail to warm, i.e. Gwildor, Man-At-Arms, Teela and even He-man some of the others are great Meg Foster was perfect for the role of Evil-Lyn as was Courtney Cox and Robert Duncan McNiell as the young couple, Skeletors four henchman ranged from pretty good to poor, Blade was an excellent idea, and the Beastman was one of the only original elements from the cartoon to remain, but Saurod was awful and Karg was just irritating, but that said, they could have been worseBut of course the final mention on performances has to get a special paragraph to itself, a Truly Inspired piece of casting brought Frank Langella the part Skeletor, and if not for his truly wondrous showing then this film could have sunk without trace, his voice and mannerisms were awesome (nothing like the cartoon, but not a problem) and the delivery of some truly great lines such as 'I must possess all, or i possess NOTHING' or 'Everything comes to he who waits, and i have waited so very long for this moment' as well as his transformation into a god were stupifyingly amazing, a 10/10 for him.Some of the action scenes were very good, whereas some were bad, its easy to see that the budget on this film was unwisely used, too much effort was used to make the cosmic key effective rather then having super cool henchman for skeletor (who were too much like darth vader's soldiers for me) i liked the air centurions though.Summing up this film is a 7 1/2 out of 10, purely because of Langella's greatness.

It's good to see the positive feedback ....

It was good to read the positive views on the film. It seems that an awful lot of people enjoyed the film, and I think, all things considered, it turned out pretty well. As to Frank Bailey's notes - everyone has a right to an opinion. No one will ever realize what goes into making any movie, but we had many masters to please on this one. The entire movie was done for $17,000,000 and it's a good looking film. I'm proud of the film, and pleased to say it was the feature film debut of Courtney Cox, Robert Duncan McNeil("Voyager") and Chelsea Field ("Last Boy Scout"). I recommend the film highly, but as the director, I am a bit prejudiced. I saw it again recently and enjoyed it. I hope any of you who view it enjoy it as well, but remember, it IS HE-MAN, so you shouldn't expect Lawrence of Arabia. It's definitely an enjoyable film if you view it with the spirit in which we made it - which was to be engaging family sci-fi.

Masters of The Universe

This movie comes out as average, and let me tell you why. The movie first off, doesn't include many of the supporting cast that made the comic book, and cartoon series so great. That alone sets the score down a bit. The characters they DID include, got scaled down costumes, and the story overall while very good, will still leave you wondering why they brought the battle to earth. So basically while good, the movie doesn't stay close enough to it's roots. (The same thing that flawed the last 2 Batman films, Though You will probably like this better Than Batman & Robin.) On a positive note, Frank Langella's Skeletor is the merciless dark being that Alan Oppenhiemer's Cartoon Counterpart could've been had censorship never come into play. Dolph Lundgren is a convincing He man, although Some of the Humanity is missing. I still wish they could have done the Prince Adam/He man thing, but I ain't gonna complain. It's a damn good movie But, they should've done a little more incorporation of the overall He man universe to roughen out the edges, making it fall short of what a perfect comic/cartoon port to movie should be. In any case because of the movie 3 new characters were introduced into the 'toon, and toyline: Saurod, Gwildor, and Blade. Anyone who likes a good fight scene will love Saurod, and Blade. An Average movie for most people. Die hard He- fans and sci fi/fantasy fans will LOVE it. An interesting footnote: Ever thought Van Damne's movie "CYBORG" seemed rushed? It probably was as "CYBORG" was originally MOTU part 2. When the series died off They had to think of something to do with the screenplay. Thus, "CYBORG" was born.