If you were to take a time-traveling child from 1985 and show them the 1987 film Masters of the Universe after said hypothetical child watched the new 2026 Masters of the Universe, said child would have to conclude that the 1987 movie was made later, and as an attempt to reboot the franchise as a darker and grittier fantasy epic. Because, as much as director Travis Knight makes sure that the new Masters film winks and jokes about the colorful and hyperbolic cartoon roots of the 1980s He-Man phenomenon, the truth is, a child with no knowledge of nostalgia or the nature of visual effects would view the new film as a straight-up, big-kid movie version of the 1983 cartoon. This is a tonal paradox that shouldn’t work at all, but somehow holds together. Just like a broken magical object can, for some reason, reconstitute itself, the triumph of the new Masters of the Universe is that its magic simply works through sheer force of will, rather than any logic or reason. |
