HE-MAN MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

HE-MAN MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE-

This is such a great movie, because it's so 80's!! it follows the very 80's trend of Conan the Barbarian, Beastmaster and even Rambo...they all featured greasy muscle men flashing their weapons and man-boobs!

He-Man was a low budget Filmation cartoon that came out in the mid-eighties. The 80's probably had the worst selection of Saturday morning cartoons ever; Care Bears, Smurfs and He-Man...it wasn't until Pee Wee's Playhouse and Mighty Mouse came along, but by that time the Saturday morning cartoon tradition is alreay on its way out.

As for the He-Man movie, I have to say I really love it! From the very instant the low budget animated logo of Canon films came on the screen and that cheesey fanfare in the background, you get this feeling of sitting in a midnight show of some B-movie starring Chuck Norris. But this one stars Dolph Lundgren (as one of my friends once put it, you can feel your IQ getting lowere as you pronounce his name) as He-Man.

The live action He-Man had very little resemblance to the animated He-Man, for one thing the animated version he has sort of a Prince Valiant haircut, here He-Man has a mullet. Some of the main characters from the cartoons were missing but replaced by, get this, Billy Barty the only midget actor left since "The Wizard of Oz", as the dwarf Gwildor.

Gwildor is not even a character from the cartoon, they put him in because they needed somebody "famous" in the film....Barty's name was the lead in the opening credits!

But Frank Langella's performance as Skeletor was a combination of Darth Vader and Ming the Merciless from the Flash Gordon movie. Skeletors army is made up of a bunch left over costumes from "Return of the Jedi", guys in black armor fumbling over each other because the suit is so heavy plus they could barely see through those heavy helmets.


You also get see a young Courtney Cox, fresh from her Bruce Springsteen "Dancing in the dark" music video. Here she's probably about 22 years old and way before she became anorexic. Courtney and her Star Trek Voyager boyfriend Robert Duncan McNeill, find a lost key from the magical dimension of Eternia. The 2 thinks the gadget is some sort of Japanese musical instrument and decide to use it to play at their senior prom. In the mean time He-Man and his friends has landed on Earth to search for the key, but Skeletor sent his army led by Evilyn (Meg Foster) are just a step behind them.


The fight scenes are a bit weak in this late-night-drive-in feature, it lacks the highly choreographed martial arts fights in action films today, or the super fake computerized action of today also, but it's fun the watch if you grew up watching the He-Man cartoons. There's a fun flying chase scene where He-Man flys across the suburban night, in the background you get to see a glimpse of Santa Rosa and the apartment building they used in "Blue Velvet".

Watching this film now 20 years after its release, it brings back a lot of fond memories as a teenager in the 1980's. Hanging around the fastfood joints like Billy Bob's BBQ where Courtney's character Julie works, or the music shop owned by Charlie (Barry Livingston of my 3 sons) decorated with wood paneling and large speakers on the wall blasting my vinyl collection of early 80's pop tunes!

In the end there's sort of a "Back to the future" kind of ending where history has been changed, and you also get to see Courtney Cox running around in her suburban neighborhood wearing a pink full flannel night gown from Sears!