"Masters Of The Universe" STARRING Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Courtney Cox, James Tolkan, Christina Pickles, Meg Foster and Robert Duncan McNeill. WRITTEN BY David Odell DIRECTED BY Gary Goddard Review by Grant Watson, copyright (c) 1997.
When I was nine, I started buying the coolest toy figures in my local department store. Masters Of The Universe was the pinnacle of what I was after for action figures: they combined science fiction and fantasy, had cool names like Mekanek and Stinkor and each came with its own little comic book to read. Of course, the animated series produced by Filmation remains one of the most wildly successful television products in world history. Given the tremendous success of the toys and the cartoon (not to mention its moderately successful spin-off She-Ra: Princess Of Power), it was inevitable that a production company would put two and two together, come with the result of "trillions" and make a live-action Masters movie.
Let's be blunt: Masters Of The Universe is a very bad movie. The story is painfully dull and mind-numbingly cliched (hands up who *wouldn't* guess He-Man and Skeletor take their fight into the real world) and is acted out by either incredibly untalented actors (Dolph Lundgren as He-Man for one) or good actors (James Tolkan, Meg Foster) given such awful characters and dialogue that they can't help but seem terrible. It is extremely clear that someone making the movie wanted it to be as good as Star Wars. We have the alien bounty hunters, the desert skif technology, Stormtrooper lookalikes and a musical score so reminiscent of John Williams that "deja vu" is too polite a term to use in describing it. "Blatant uninspired ripoff" would appear more appropriate. TV fans might want to check out Courtney Cox (Monica in Friends) and Robert Duncan McNeill (Lt Paris in Star Trek: Voyager), very early in their careers and not doing to well in them either.
So in the face of such mindless sub-mediocrity, is there anything to make Masters Of The Universe worth watching at all? Yes, there is. One incredible good reason. His name is Frank Langella. Langella has always been one of the underrated actors of Hollywood, appearing in countless films over the years. Here he plays Skeletor, the villain of the piece. Dressed in opulent black velvet robes and bearing a skull for a face, he is one part Darth Vader, one part Emperor and two parts Grim Reaper. Given this character, Langella falls right into it with style and precision. Skeletor is believable, interesting and manages to tread the fine line between being a homage to the past and startlingly original in his own right.
Masters Of The Universe. I remember loving it when I was eleven. At twenty one it's difficult to see why. But, as I said, it is blessed with a superlative villain who makes the entire thing worth the tedium of the remainder. Besides, this year marks the film's 10th anniversary. Watch it with some friends for a good laugh and celebrate.
SCORE: 3/10 (the film)
10/10 (Skeletor)
__________________nzone@iinet.net.au_______________ "Science fiction is about the future and fantasy is about the past - the myth of the way things used to be. Science fiction is, in a sense, trying to construct a myth of the future."
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