If you were a kid in the '80s, you were all about He-Man, and I was no exception. I had the toys, the books, the lunch box, the underwear-pretty much everything I owned, in fact, bore the likeness of my all-time favorite cartoon character. So when I found out there was going to be a movie, I thought my life was complete.
I really couldn't have been more disappointed if they'd put He-Man in a tux and top hat. This movie sucked. First off, Battle-Cat, Orko, and pretty much all the villains from the original cartoon were replaced by new characters that everyone hated. Skeletor's mask didn't even come close to looking skeletal, and all his troops (since when did Skeletor have "troops"?) were direct rip-offs of a handful of costumes from Star Wars.
Then we have He-Man, who wears a cape (?) and never becomes Prince Adam. Plus, Lundgren has problems hiding his accent and can't really act anyway. The annoying dwarf Gwildor would've been forgivable if they'd only changed
his name to Orko! Come on, we all knew this was the movie's answer to Orko...just a few minor changes to the script, and one big gripe could've been avoided. And who could forget those two teenagers? Man, I wish I could...
But these complaints come mostly from a fan of the cartoon series. On its own, as well, the movie has a whole host of problems. For one, the script is awful. Even for a sci-fi/fantasy adventure, there's nothing about the story that's even minutely believable (why do Eternians speak English?). There's no reason for Skeletor to be so fixated on finding this "cosmic key," since he's already got one. They try to cover it up by adding the line, "I must possess all, or I possess nothing!" but it doesn't work.
Then, on Earth, when He-Man and company lose the key, they just so happen to run across the two kids who found it.
With the exception of Frank Langella, none of the actors did a halfway decent job, though it's hard to tell based on what they were given to work with. And the resolution at the end is so predictable and cheesy I even stood up in the theater as a six-year-old kid and yelled, "Bulls***!"
I could keep listing the its flaws, but my hands are cramping in protest to thinking about this movie. It gets 3 out of 10 from me.
