Title – Masters of the Universe (2026)

Director – Travis Knight (Bumblebee)

Cast – Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba, Jared Leto, Alison Brie

Plot – Adam (Galitzine) discovers that his visions of a life he lived on another planet are in fact real and that he must wield the legendary Sword of Power to help save a universe that has been overrun by Skeletor (Leto) and his evil minions.  

“Hang on, it’s about to get weird”

Review by Eddie on 10/08/2026

One of the contenders for the crown of 2026’s biggest box-office duds, Kubo and the Two Strings and Bumblebee director Travis Knight’s new iteration of 80’s cult favourite fantasy actioner Masters of the Universe is a film that appears no one really wanted and while there’s an easy-going playfulness on display here that’s hard to completely ignore, it’s hard to suggest that those that ignored Knight’s take on this tale were wrong in their wariness to support a film that fails to make its mark.

Taking a Guardians of the Galaxy like approach to Mattel’s I.P, Knight and his films writers Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee ensure that Universe is instantly recognisable to the Marvel adoring crowd and with its Daniel Pemberton’s Queen infused score and incessant CGI to consume, there’s a sugar rush to be had from major parts of his iteration of this story but while doing so, Universe is unable to carve out its own identity across an almost two and a half hour runtime that far outstays its welcome.

Casting Netflix breakout star Nicholas Galitzine in the role of Prince Adam, a young man who has been sent to Earth after his home planet of Eternia is overrun by evil overlord Skeletor, in a role played out by one of Jared Leto’s better comic book roles (not that that’s a hard task), Universe asks a lot of its leading man to push things on their merry way but no one within the ensemble is able to stand out here, with Galitzine looking the part but hamming it up in to many instances, giving the comic infused flavours of the film an odd tone while the serious beats of the film get lost in amongst all the greenscreen and bombastic music.

Arriving at a time and place in the movie going realm where comic and comic feeling movies are struggling to resonate with general punters, Spider-Man and Doomsday excluded, there’s little on show here, despite the reported $170 million budget that was provided courtesy of the films Amazon backing, that suggests there’s any reason for audiences to get overly excited here and while the film has fast-tracked its way out of cinemas straight into homes around the globe, the fast pace that this has occurred in is unlikely to translate into long-term success, with fans of the Universe brand or He-Man the character more likely to go back to the old cartoons or 80’s movie for their fix.

Proving that there’s more demand coming from cinemagoers when it comes to films of this ilk, Universe may have made more of a mark a decade ago and perhaps generated stronger audience sentiment but with 2026 proving there’s money to be made from films doing things differently and thriving from original ways to tell well-trodden or fresh stories, Universe feels like an archaic exercise that is scattershot in its approach to appease an audience that no longer exists.

A film that is hard to passionately hate but nigh on impossible to fall head over heels for, Universe may mean well but it doesn’t mean we can forgive it for being so generic and forgettable.

Final Say –

It seems as though some are being kinder to this film than others, which is fine as there’s some basic movie-watching joy to be had from this nostalgia laden feature but overall, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that Masters of the Universe is a film devoid of a reason to care, getting lost in a crowded marketplace that the public have moved past long ago.

2 green tigers out of 5