Well, it’s not gritty. I can say with great confidence that the trailer for Masters of the Universe, the new He-Man movie from Bumblebee director Travis Knight, does not have a single speck of grit. It does have dark castle hallways and unremarkable battle sequences, but it is not gritty. If you feared they were going to gritty up a children’s cartoon—a fair concern in this day and age!—you can breathe a sigh of relief.
Neither is it colorful and fun, though. Much of this first real look at the film looks like the generic version of Thor: Ragnarok, as ordered from a questionable website. It begins with a cliched statement about how everything you think is from bedtime stories is real, and then shows us a Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine, The Idea of You) who has been sent away from his war-torn home … to an office building in corporate America. (One wishes to know what he did until he wound up in corporate America. Does he have an adopted family like Superman? Is the movie going to tell me anything interesting?)
So he’s gotta find his magic sword and go home. Home mostly seems to be ominous castles and guys punching each other, so I’m not sure what’s so great about it, but presumably Prince Adam is going to improve the situation.
He-Man, for the uninitiated, was originally an action figure (with associated comics) before becoming a cartoon that a gazillion children watched after school in the 1980s, when you had to watch whatever was on. He has a green tiger! It’s pretty great! The tiger is not very green here, but I would still like to see more of him.
For what it’s worth, Galitzine seems absolutely game for the role, and seems to be having at least a little bit of fun and generally not taking himself too seriously. It’s possible the movie also has this tone and the teaser just forgot to say so. Trailers are big fibbers sometimes. This one also withholds He-Man’s famous shout—”By the power of Grayskull!”—which transforms Prince Adam into He-Man. One must save something for the cinematic experience, I guess.
Joining Galitzine in the battle for Eternia are Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Idris Elba as Duncan, Camila Mendes as Teela, Sam C. Wilson as Trap Jaw, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Goat Man, Kojo Attah as Tri-Klops, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Fisto, and Morena Baccarin as the Sorceress. Jared Leto plays Skeletor, which is just peculiar casting.
It took a lot of people to write this movie: Story credit goes to Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, Alex Litvak, and Michael Finch, and the script is by the Nees, Chris Butler, and Dave Callaham. Masters of the Universe is in theaters June 5th.
