Masters of the Universe: a child’s toy (review)

The adaptation of He-Man arrives in France on Prime Video. An unbridled version, which has fun for two hours without ever taking itself seriously. A recreation without interest, but not without fun.

You have to have grown up in the 1980s to know who He-Man is, his green tiger and his sworn enemy with a skull for a face…

Mattel re-releases today his Masters of the Universe in a huge fantasy film – to watch in streaming in France on Prime Video – which ultimately has only one purpose: to play. Without ever taking yourself seriously! The basis, you might say, when you make a film around plastic toys.

So, there is no need for a scenario. Instead, we embroider a little story worthy of those our dear little ones tell themselves when they play in their rooms with their figurines: “It seems that young Adam, prince of Eternia, is sent to Earth when Skeletor overthrows the king. He has to hide the sword that holds the power of the Ancestral Skull. But he loses it and remains stuck on Earth until he becomes an adult. And then he finds it and returns to Eternia to defeat Skeletor with his warrior friends!”

It’s obviously simple. Childish, one might say. But someone at Amazon MGM clearly must have spent a lot of time playing He-Man as a kid, because they wrote a crazy check for $170 million (the budget reported by the American press) to turn this childish tale into a big Hollywood production.

Yes, the toy is expensive! But at that price, we’re having fun! Because these Masters of the Universe never take themselves for what they are not. We are not in a great mythological epic crossed by dark and existential issues. We play. Travis Knight, who had already done vroom vroom with Bumblebee in the cinema (in 2018), is back in the sandbox with his friends and makes his characters confront each other as he undoubtedly imagined when he was in short pants. The entire film breathes a form of mischievous and zany lightness, carried by an uninhibited humor which never seeks to justify the absurd (at one point, it is even a question of fist fucking…). Even the (obligatory?) cameo of Dolph Lundgren – who played He-Man in the 1987 film – is so outdated and staged to the extreme that we can’t imagine that the director didn’t want it exactly like that.

With this sense of self-deprecation and a blatant second degree, Jared Leto composes a cartoonish Skeletor as possible, while Nicholas Galitzine ostensibly laughs at inflating the pecs of this muscular hero from another era. Everything is bathed in a totally assumed 80’s nostalgia, drawing its inspiration from the great fanciful frescoes of the decade (Conan, The Neverending Story Or Excalibur...). Awfully cheesy or deliciously vintage? Those who have kept a child’s soul will know how to have fun. These Masters of the Universe look at each other like you take an old toy out of the attic: with an amused smile, as a family, remembering what is no longer…

Masters of the Universe, on Prime Video from July 22, 2026. Duration: 2h10