Masters of the effin’ Universe

Pardon me the uncharacteristic detour into nerdgasm, but: while I think the marketing for this delicious slice of eighties nostalgia has been pretty bang on, I do think they’ve missed a trick by not releasing a trailer cut to The Darkness’ immaculate, Queen-riffing theme song. There could be no more appropriate heirs apparent to the bombast of Queen at their Flash Gordon-iest camp zenith, and this track took me from “curiously excited” to “hell fucken yeah” in just over three minutes. Time will prove whether the flick is up to the dazzling visions of my inner seven-year-old’s expectations, but Travis Knight has game and it’s feeling like this might be the perfect flick to eat a fistful to and regress into the world of high stakes dopiness that is Masters of the Universe at its finest. They should have re-dubbed that sex creep Leto with Frank Langella, though. Anyway, here’s my trailer re-edit. “I like fisting people” - Masters of the Universe 2026 review From my Letterboxd. Maybe there are a very specific set of preconditions for enjoying this. Maybe you had to have grown up with action figures based on juiced-up bodybuilders, heavily rotoscoped, repetitive animation and the nagging disappointment of the 1987 Dolph version that omitted the majority of the goofy lore. Gwildor? Fuck that guy. 

(Courtney Cox’ Teela on the other hand? Be still my prepubescent heart). Maybe that’s the issue. We live in an era of perpetual I.P. farming, and this is property is admittedly niche, lacking the long tail of nostalgia that other brands of the era lay claim to. Sinking a couple of hundred million into this seems like folly, a lark fuelled by a punt for those sweet, sweet Barbie returns. So sure, this joyful, camp sci-fi fantasy romp, shot through with buckets of Mike Nichols’ ‘Flash Gordon’ (1980), with The Darkness leaning in as Queen’s heirs apparent, might not hit for you based on its highly niche pedigree. And casting sex criminal Jared Leto is a big ‘why?’ when Frank Langella was right there (but isn’t he sort of a creep too? Sigh). It’s legit perplexing that Leto is somewhat of a delight in this. Maybe snivelling loser with delusions of grandeur is meta-commentary? That being said, all of the players know precisely what flick they’re in, from Galitzine’s dopey, good hearted himbo to Alison Brie’s “fuck this guy, I’m out of here” hench-witch, Evil-Lyn. Kudos to Idris Elba for selling the spew gag, too. I’m from director Travis Knight’s generation (Xennial, never Gen X, okay thanks?), and what he does here is pretty remarkable. Sure, it’s a brew of Thor, Guardians and Flash Gordon, and sure it’s a reverently goofy upgrade of the cartoon with a bombastic, synth drenched score from Daniel Pemberton (and Brian May) that’s distilled eighties sonic hyperbole. And sure, it probably gets an extra star for its admirable dedication to the fisting gag. If you don’t like it, that’s not on you. You just had to be there, man.