the audience applauded

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I saw this film for the first time 30 years ago, when it premired in my country (Portugal) in July 1988. I was 15 then, and for a teenager in the 80's this film was a treat. It had everything: a great hero, a great villain, a lot of fantasy, great fight scenes, hot chicks (Chelsea Field looked realy hot in that tight outfit of hers), awsome special effects. It's no wonder I loved it, no wonder it became one of my favourite fantasy films. Of course, when we're young we tend to overlook the flaws of our favourite films, either because we're so invested in the story and with the fate of the characters, or simply because we're young and not that experienced as moviegoers. The fact is that this film has flaws. The screenplay is very unbalanced, there is no character introduction, the writers simply assume the audience knows these characters and their world, and that's a mistake. I and most kids my age knew the comics this film is based on, but a lot of people in the audience didn't and some kind of introduction would have been nice. The pace is also very uneven, first you have about 10-15 minutes of very fast fight scenes in Eternia and then the action is transfered to Earth and the pace becomes rather slow, taking the time to introduce all the earth characters and their motivation. It's only when Skeletor decides to come to Earth himself with his army that the pace picks up again. The acting isn't remarkable, but it isn't bad either. The best of them all, unsurprisingly, is the great Frank Langela as Skeletor - he manages to make a rather bi-dimensional and un-interesting character into a tri-dimensional person, a real evil-doer that you would hate to meet in person. Lundgren looks the part, but is acting is a little wooden. Still, he looks great swinging a sword and is awsome at kicking @ss, so we forgive him for not being that great an actor. The rest of the cast are adequate in their parts, which they play competently. There are a lot of cheesy lines in this movie, as was typical in this kind of flick in the 80's, but that only contributes to it's charm, even 30 years later. The special effects, though acceptable for 1987, are clearly dated, the film hasn't aged well in that department. Skeletor's makeup, though, is pretty good, even by today's standards. The direction is adequate, Gary Goddard did the best he could with what he was given to work with. Given a larger budget and a better screenplay he probably would have made a much better movie. Still, it's a very entertaining movie and it brings back good memories from my youth. If you ignore the somewhat dated special effects and the overall cheesyness of the film, you're in for a lot of fun. I give it 6 stars out of 10.

Cannon movie based on the popular toy line and cartoon series from my childhood. I should say loosely based, as it rips off everything from Star Wars to Flash Gordon, all the while borrowing precious little of worth from the He-Man mythos and purportedly being a tribute of sorts to Jack Kirby's New Gods. You could look at all those connections and say "well this just sounds like a pile of awesome" but you would be wrong.I hated this movie with a passion when I was a kid, mainly because it felt nothing like the He-Man I knew and more like some generic sci-fi action movie that had the Masters of the Universe name attached. But over the years I've grown to appreciate a lot of movies I didn't like when they were first released. And I do appreciate this more than I did then, but I'm still not ready to say it's a good film. Its value is in its badness, particularly Frank Langella's delightfully campy performance as Skeletor. Unfortunately he's not in the entire movie. The bulk of the film takes place on Earth with He-Man and friends running around with Courteney Cox and trying not to be killed by the goons Skeletor has sent after them. Most of this is just boring.Other than Langella, the cast is either adequate (Meg Foster, Courteney Cox, Jon Cypher, James Tolkan) or terrible (Billy Barty). Dolph Lundgren is wooden to the point that it makes his previous performance as Drago in Rocky IV seem like Hamlet. The budget is obviously very low and the costumes and special effects are cheesy. It's worth a look for fans of Cannon and He-Man. See it for the campiness and fast-forward to the Skeletor scenes.

A prince turned warrior named He-Man battles against the dark lord Skeletor on the planet Eternia. He-Man and his comrades arrive on Earth and discover two teenage lovers to find the magical Cosmic Key.Now, the strange thing about this is that the film was in production based on the toys and not on the cartoon. This results in two very different visions of the same characters, and probably results in plenty of confusion from those who expect the cartoon and get something with lasers and Courteney Cox.But taken in its own right, it is not bad. Not great, but not bad. And it certainly is better than what they tried to do with the Super Mario Brothers. (Although, even that one is fun now that we can look back and laugh.)

Oh my how delicious is this piece of 80's panto, some of the best badly adapted hokey nonsense I've seen, yet somehow its so damn good.Where to start! this really is your typical fantasy film of the era, every cliché every funny little niche is here as you would expect and the funny thing is it was actually meant to be a blockbuster. I have since found out there were many problems in creating this film and it does show some what, the film is really nothing like the original He-Man cartoon in any way.Effects wise this sorta stumbles through with some interesting ideas, some of the makeup is actually quite good, Skeletor, Beast Man and Saurod all have pretty nice makeup appliances and costumes which fit the He-Man universe. Other effects are laughably terrible with some awful bluescreen work, nasty models of which most seem ripped straight outta 'Star Wars', faded poor laser blast effects and some of the most hilariously bad stunts and fight choreography you will see. Most kicks and punches clearly (and I mean CLEARLY) don't make their intended contacts.The cast are actually a mix of decent character actors which is the funny thing, some of these performances saved the film and gave it cult status. Of course Langella as Skeletor is the co de gra of cheesy villains with his snarling voice and bellowing cries lusting for power. For me the best and most amusing performance was James Tolkan as the no nonsense cop Lubic with his sharp tongue, gotta love that guy and his baldness.Along for the ride is steady character actor Jon Cypher, fantasy actor regular Billy Barty, Meg Foster as the quite sexual Evil-Lyn in her lovely tight barbarian-esq outfit with luscious lips (oh yeah!) and last of all Courtney Cox, yes THAT Courtney Cox of 'Friends' fame and as you would expect she's still annoying as hell even back then. So yes the film is practically a joke with its Punch and Judy style and completely awful effects, fights etc...but it has gained a lot of notoriety for just that. Even when I saw this back as a kid I knew the film bared no resemblance to the original material, it always bewildered me why the creators thought to create new bad guys when there were so many rich villains to use, who the hell was Blade, Karg and Saurod suppose to be? where was Trap Jaw Tri-Klops Mer-Man or Man-E-Faces? the same could be said for the heroes also. Then there was the question of who on Earth were all these stormtrooper type foot soldiers clad in black armour that were an idea rip from so many films!?.I have since found out they were stuck in so He-Man could kill things without becoming too violent for the kids as He-Man wasn't suppose to kill. I can see that now but it still doesn't work right does it, I can't believe Lucas never sued frankly even with the almost identical ending to 'ROTJ'.Its funny to look back and laugh, even more so to think films like this actually made it to the cinema and were meant to be big money spinners. I actually love how the film just goes off on its own tangent completely ignoring the source material, its so far gone its brilliant in such a bad way. Gotta love Skeletor's golden coloured horned silver foil battle mask getup when he transforms at the end which seems to be a rip off from 'Big Trouble in Little China'! the way Tolkan swears oh and the fact Teela seems to be wearing a thin thong if you look closely as well, kids film?.Wanna give it a good score because its just so poor its good, but really I can't...end of the day it is purely sh*t.3.5/10