Blu-ray Review: Masters of the Universe - 25th Anniversary Edition - Page 2

Anyway, the story here finds evil Skeletor (Langella) finally overthrowing Castle Grayskull (offscreen), thus instilling upon He-Man and Co. (Dolph, Field, Jon Cypher) a fair bit of bad luck. Fortunately, a decidedly Willow/Yoda-esque creature named Gwildor (Billy Barty, underneath a lot of rather limp makeup) is able to help, for he is responsible for the magical key thingy Skeletor used to achieve his deed. Gwildor serendipitously has also created a second key — which the bad guy is after, and which ultimately transports the lot of our heroes to the planet Earth, circa 1987: a land of big hair, Members Only jackets, and blatant product placement.

There, He-Man and his esteemed collection of embarrassed b-movie actors make the acquaintance of teenagers Julie and Kevin (Courtney Cox and Robert Duncan McNeill, respectively), who help the aliens out with sorting out a big bad mess Mr. Odell and his producers so dubiously refer to as a script. Skeletor and his favorite gal-pal Evil-Lyn (Meg Foster) send an assortment of goofy-looking critters and henchmen (as played by an variety of actors without so much as a collective sense of shame) to quench the do-gooders.

Of course, the forces of evil do not succeed — mostly because there's even less ignominy on the side of right (if such a thing is possible). As if the comic relief of Billy Barty's character combined with the aforementioned tale or inanity and the main actors' dreadful, dishonored performances weren't enough, the unmistakable character actor stylings of James Tolkan are brought in to play a typical b-movie cop who finds himself right in the middle of everything, and who quips one dumb cliché line after another as both he and his character attempt to unveil a clue.

It's crappy live-action cartoon fun as only the boys at Cannon could produce, kids — and the fact that they sadly misread the demand for a sequel only makes it funnier (it almost happened, too: auspiciously, though, Golan-Globus didn't want to pay such outrageous licensing fees to Mattel, so all the costumes and sets for the intended follow-up were instead employed in the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme flick, Cyborg). 25 years later, the folks at Warner Home Video have decided to give us a High-Def release of this campy cult classic to Blu-ray, in a presentation that is far better than this film probably deserves.

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Article Author: Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the disgruntled alter-ego of Adam Becvar, a thirtysomething lad from Northern California who has watched so many weird movies since the tender age of 3 that a conventional life is out of the question. …

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