After leaving the movie theater with our friend John (follow his instagram page Jedicollects), I was asking myself a question I haven’t asked in years. Did Jared Leto redeem himself finally? Yes, you are reading that correctly, for the first time since his disastrous performance of Joker, Jared Leto has brought a fan favorite character to life and nailed it. If you are reading this, you know that Leto is voicing Skeletor in Masters of the Universe and just like his performance, its over the top, loud and a lot of fun.

My knowledge of Masters of the Universe is pretty limited, I have watched the Dolph Lundrgen and Frank Langella film from 1987 and watched the Kevin Smith animated show on Netflix. Beyond that, its only been a crossover with Injustice in the comics, so my excitement for this film came from friends. Having friends that were excited, I knew this was meant to be seen with them. However I did not expect to fall in love Eternia and the characters of Masters of the Universe. The plot is thin but very much like Mortal Kombat 2 earlier this year, we are not watching this for a good plot.

After the capital city of Planet Eternia is taking over by the evil Skeletor, a young Prince Adam is sent to Earth with the Sword of Power to protect it. However, Adam is not the most heroic person and on his travel to Earth, his loses the sword. Fast forward fifteen years, Adam (Played by Nicholas Galitzine) is having dreams of Eternia and hunting down the sword to return home. Adam finally finds the sword at a comic shop (Nice!) and suddenly Beast Man, Skeltor’s lieutenant is wrecking havoc on Earth and an old frined from Eternia, Teela (Played by Camila Mendes) comes to rescue Adam. Back on Eternia, Adam finally realizes his meaning with the power of grayskull and most save the planet from Skeletor.

One of the best things about this film, is the lack of Earth. The majority of the film takes place on Eternia and feels like a love letter to the toy line and animated series. The 1987 film mostly takes place on earth and despite a thin plot, removing earth was brilliant move for this reboot. Any fears of Leto being a bad Skeletor and Galitzine as the champion of Grayskull are quickly gone within the first 30 minutes of the film. I found myself wanting to see more of each character and truly hope that we see them again. Galitzine had me laughing in the 2023 comedy Bottoms and was happy to see his charm and being believable as He-Man ooze from the screen. Leto is hilarious and menacing, his performance will be used as memes for years to come. That may not sound like a good thing, but the script and Leto really leaned into the silliness of the character. Its honestly nice to have a movie that has a memorable villain, I feel like recently the super hero and action genre have suffered when it comes to villains. Masters of the Universe succeeds in giving us a fun and memorable Skeletor.

Director Travis Knight, does feel inspired by James Gunn as the film feels like Guardians of the Galaxy and Superman. Its embraces the silliness and colorful aesthetic of the franchise, very much like Gunn’s work, Knight gives time to the supporting cast to steal the film. Very much like Galtizine, Camila Mendes’ work to me has been limited to one film and she did a awesome job as Teela, looks great and kicked ass throughout the whole film. In her limited screen time Morena Baccarin became the Sorceress, the character design was ripped from the animated series and looked amazing. But the real scene stealer is Idris Elba as Duncan AKA Man-At-Arms, which comes as no surprise. Duncan is the one character outside Adam that has a story arc and Elba takes a side character and turns him into my favorite character in the film.

I do feel like 10 minutes could have been shaved off of the final runtime. Coming in at 2 hours and 20 minutes, it did have moments that could have been cut. Nothing terrible, just feels like the film didn’t know when to stop. There was one character that did not work for me and that was Allison Brie’s Evil-Lyn. Brie is usually a highlight in most of her roles but here, she is in the shadows of Leto’s Skeletor and looks like she is cosplaying as the evil sorceress. Masters of the Universe is a funny action-packed movie that does not take itself serious at all, which could be off-putting to some. A lot of meta jokes in relations to name and being self aware of what the franchise is. If you don’t like the James Gunn style, you will probably be tired of the humor and exhausted by the time the credits. Which by the way, the film has 3 end credit scenes with 2 of them being awesome teases for the future of the franchise.

This film is a miracle that it exist, the franchise is 44 years old and has not been relevant since the 80s, however its 2026 and we have a Masters of the Universe film that works. I was imagining my dad watching this as a kid in the 80s, those that loved the franchise as a kid will love this movie. Hell, it made a new fan out of me.