By The Power of Camp, ‘Masters of the Universe’ Delivers Big Fantastical Fun

Big, dumb and gloriously camp, He-Man has finally made it to live action (again) in Masters of the Universe, and the result is exactly the film you’d expect, for better and occasionally for worse.

Directed by Travis Knight, the proudly schlocky blockbuster fantasy follows Adam Glenn (Nicholas Galitzine),  Prince of Eternia as he finds his way home to return it all to glory, with the help of its greatest heroes, and defeat the villainous ever-cackling Skeletor (Jared Leto).

Far from a reinvention, Knight doesn’t reinvent anything so much as coat it in chrome and hurl it into a valley of enormous swords and glorious thighs. The first act is the film at its most alive, loose and confident, before the second half starts accumulating weight it can’t quite carry.

When it leans into camp and chaos it genuinely sings, but when it reaches for something earnest it noticeably loses its nerve, because sincerity is simply not where this film lives.

The ensemble does committed, knowing work throughout. Galitzine brings real charm and physicality to Adam, carrying the film with ease and making a role that could have dissolved into scenery feel genuinely watchable. And then there’s Leto as Skeletor, operating at a specific frequency of theatrical menace that turns out to suit him so completely it almost recontextualises his entire career. Camila Mendes as Teela deserved a significantly larger piece of this world and the film is noticeably poorer for not giving it to her.

What gives the film an unexpected layer is how genuinely it commits to its own gay allegory. Adam carries the power inside him the whole time, a hulking leather-skirted version of himself waiting to emerge, and the film lets that reading breathe without ever condescending to explain it. The transformation isn’t really about prophecy, it’s about permission. That’s a more interesting hero’s journey than the script probably gets credit for, and it’s why the film connects with a specific audience well beyond casual camp appreciation.

The gaybait wonderment, as a colleague perfectly put it, isn’t incidental decoration, but rather the whole architecture.

Technically the film swings hard and mostly connects. The VFX arrive with force and hold together at scale, feeling earned rather than compensatory, and there’s a found-family warmth running through the ensemble that keeps the more predictable stretches from going flat. The comedy lands more than it misses, earning its laughs through sheer audacity.

What ultimately saves Masters of the Universe from its own messiness is that it never pretends to be something it isn’t. It wears its source material honestly, faithful to the camp and the colour and the inherent ridiculousness, self-aware enough that the silliness reads as intention rather than accident. Sharper writing would have given it a genuine edge, but this is the most anyone was ever going to do with He-Man on a major budget, and within that constraint it delivers something rare: a blockbuster that actually understands what it is.

Masters of the Universe is in cinemas now.