Warning: Mild spoilers for Masters of the Universe to follow.
“Sexuality doesn’t exist for superheroes. They are neutered. There is an unidentified gender, the adventure is what’s important,” revered writer-director Pedro Almodóvar once told Vulture. The Talk to Her Oscar winner had a point: In a majority of superhero films, the very idea of “sexuality” feels verboten. Despite all the hullabaloo surrounding the vigorous workout routines that otherwise normal-looking actors suffer through in order to beef up for these high-paying roles, many of the films themselves deliberately present these hunky heroes in a rather chaste manner. It’s as if they’re scared of turning them into sexual objects lest they not be taken seriously as all-powerful beings whose only goal in life is to rid their planets of evil.
Not so for Masters of the Universe, the new film based on Mattel’s popular brand of action figures (and its corresponding 1980s animated series). Beyond being a surprisingly fun summer popcorn flick, the movie feels decidedly hornier than its counterparts. Not because it’s some orgiastic fantasia. (Across the PG-13 film’s slightly bloated 132-minute run time, there are no steamy sex scenes or passionate make outs.) But by slutting out its lead, the rising Hollywood heartthrob Nicholas Galitzine, the film is able to tap into a vein that’s been missing from the superhero fare of yore. Playing the affable hunk Adam (or, as he’ll be crowned in the final moments of the film: He-Man), Galitzine mindlessly bumbles around in a barely there costume, sticking out as the quintessential himbo. And by playing directly into this sexual appeal, MOTU opens up the notoriously straight-male-centered superhero genre to women and gays who may be looking for something different from their action-adventure films.
