Making a movie based on Masters of the Universe is an incredibly difficult task. Based on a toy line that became a hit animated series, the world is a very unique, very weird blend of fantasy, 1980s action tropes, and characters clearly designed so you could play with them. It’s not built to be taken too seriously, but it also demands a certain reverence to make it seem epic, and it never loses sight of the fact that it’s self-aware and fun. It sounds impossible to translate that into a film, but if anyone could do it, it’s director Travis Knight. The president of Laika achieved a similar task with one of the best Transformers movies, Bumblebee, and was keenly aware of the unique challenges of the story and setting going into Masters of the Universe. He aspired to make sure Masters of the Universe threaded a difficult needle: a movie that unabashedly loves this universe and its characters, but also makes it accessible to an audience who doesn’t. Something that’s exciting, emotional, and just campy enough. Unfortunately, he and the film mostly fail to hit that tiny bullseye of tone, resulting in a film that’s ambitious and beautiful, but ultimately a let down. © MGM Here’s what we mean: after being forced to leave his home world of Eternia and spending his entire childhood on Earth, Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) returns home. There, he sets out to defeat the person who sent his family into ruin, the evil villain Skeletor (Jared Leto), with help from his friend Teela (Camila Mendes) and others.