Masters of the Universe Reminds Us That Not Every Silly Thing Needs to Be a Joke

This article contains spoilers for Masters of the Universe

In the first big payoff moment of Masters of the Universe, kindhearted HR rep Adam Glenn (Nicholas Galitzine) raises the power sword into the air and declares, “By the power of Grayskull… I have the power!” Where once stood a milquetoast man in a powder pink shirt now stands a certified hunk, all rippling biceps, with a tiny metal plate over his impressive pecs and a loin cloth keeping the movie PG-13. Now in He-Man mode, Adam lunges toward his enemy, a blue-skinned pirate guy with a red metal mouth and retracting weapons on his arm, who goes by the name Trap Jaw (Sam C. Wilson).

The scene looks every bit like the toy line adaptation it is, the big-budget effects only intensifying the feeling that you’re watching a five-year-old bash his action figures together. And it absolutely rules. The fight works so much better than the scene leading up to it, when Adam tries to employ his corporate conflict resolution skills to talk Trap Jaw out of the battle, if only because Masters of the Universe stops making self-aware quips about how silly the whole thing is.

Bested By Barbie

It’s hard to blame director Travis Knight and his screenwriting team, which includes frequent collaborator Chris Butler as well as Adam Nee, Aaron Nee, and Dave Callaham, who have worked on the script through previous iterations. Masters of the Universe is extremely silly, a property that began as a toy line transparently designed to appeal to little boys who like Conan the Barbarian and Star Wars. It combines outlandish concepts, such as a guy who fights by extending his neck really, really far, with the most obvious execution, naming that guy Mekaneck (James Wilkinson). Others include a guy who rams people called Ram-Man (Jon Xue Zhang), a skeleton man called Skeletor (Jared Leto), and Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie), who is indeed evil.

Furthermore, Masters of the Universe enters a cinematic landscape defined by self-awareness. Love or hate it, nerd culture still exists in the shadow of Joss Whedon, who wrote characters that were both pop culture savvy and unimpressed with the whole thing. Whedon brought that approach to movies by writing and directing the first two Avengers movies, in which Tony Stark dismissively refers to the team as “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” dismissing the tagline that debuted in 1963’s Avengers #1.

Moreover, Masters of the Universe sits in the shadow of Barbie, a wildly successful adaptation of Mattel’s other toy line. Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach filled their movie with jokes about the appropriateness of a pregnant doll sold to kids or the uselessness of Alan. But those quips came with a point.

Take one of Barbie‘s best gags, when Stereotypical Barbie bawls about never being conventionally attractive enough, a claim undercut when Helen Mirren’s narrator interjects to point out that Margot Robbie is the definition of conventionally attractive. That’s a metajoke about the silliness of the story and the scene, but it has a point, one tied to the history of the toy line. As a product, Barbie has reinforced limited standards of beauty, and the knowing gag operates less as the filmmakers’ condescension and more like their acknowledgment that these toys matter, that they have larger social effects. The film feels an obligation to address those effects, and it does so through a metajoke.

Get More Stupider

Masters of the Universe has no such obligations. The screenplay tries to say something about how Skeletor uses power to hurt and how He-Man uses power to help, and how listening and friendship is its own type of power. But all that falls flat, for the exact reason stated by the film. Adam tries to talk it out with a blue-skinned pirate monster or to an evil wizard with a skull for a face, who openly declares that he loves being evil. By the climax of the film, even He-Man says “The time for talk is done,” and wallops Skeletor with his bare fists.

In short, He-Man doesn’t have same cultural impact as Barbie and doesn’t have nearly as much to say about masculinity. Moreover, attempting to talk about masculinity and power undermines the sole reason for Masters of the Universe‘s existence, the opportunity to watch crazy musclemen beat each other up.

The same is true of the metatextual jokes in Masters of the Universe. Yes, we all know that it’s silly for Ram-Man to slam into people with his head. And, yes, all of us grown-ups now realize that the name “Fisto” has an extreme double entendre. But when Fisto (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson) declares that he’s going to fist all the bad guys and tells Ram-Man to “give them head,” we don’t need him to then stop and apologize with embarrassment.

Thinking of Barbie while watching the toys duke it out on screen, one cannot help but recall that old schoolyard taunt and think, at least in the case of Masters of the Universe, maybe boys should go to Jupiter to get more stupider.

What’s Best in Life is Dumbest in Life

In its best moments, Masters of the Universe recognizes what it is and embraces it without embarrassment. Daniel Pemberton’s synth score and the bright costumes bring us right back to the matte-painted worlds that the toy line was trying to emulate, movies like Conan the Barbarian, The Beastmaster, and The NeverEnding Story. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t wink when Conan told us what is best in life. He just talked about crushing and driving enemies and hearing women’s lamentations, in a way that was unironic, problematic, utterly stupid, and utterly awesome.

So few movies get to be so stupid and cool, especially on a studio level. Time and again, today’s movies have to make sure everyone knows that we’re all smarter than the material, even though the studio happily takes your money for engaging the material. More than almost any other IP, Masters of the Universe has the power to ignore the pretensions and just be dumb fun. The movie’s makers should have used it.

Masters of the Universe is now playing in theaters worldwide.