Brief Story Line
Adam (Nicholas Galitzine - The Craft: Legacy, Purple Hearts etc) was the Prince of Eternia who was separated from his family since childhood and stranded on earth for years after their planet was attacked by the army of evil warlock Skeletor (Jared Leto - Tron: Ares, Suicide Squad etc) along with his sorceress Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie - Freelance, Community TV series etc). When Adam was finally able to go back to Eternia with the help from his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes - Do Revenge, Upgraded etc), he found that the planet was no longer like what he remembered.
With the stength that he acquired from Sword of Power, Adam together with Teela, her father Duncan/Man-at-Arms (Idris Elba - Heads of State, Hijack TV series etc) plus Roboto (voiced by Kristen Wiig - Despicable Me 4, Downsizing etc) and later joined by the kingdom's old army, had to fight and reclaim Eternia from Skeletor who have been trying to get his hand on the sword,
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Back in the 1980s, the animated series He-man was quite popular in Indonesia but I am not sure why I never watched it then and only caught glimpses of it. My wife on the other hand was quite a fan (though not as big as others), but she at least knew He-man got his power from the sword and his nemesis Skeletor. That is why when watching this movie, my wife was the one who had strong nostalgic feeling and even got teary eyed during that scene when Adam mentioned the "magic words".
However even though I had no personal attachment on the series, I was still able to enjoy this a lot cause sword and sorcery was also my favorite genre, plus the story telling was surprisingly quite good and it was filled with a lot of jokes albeit a bit cringe. There were plenty of humor and it was also very light (so light that sometimes we felt we were watching cartoon due to its lightness). The action sequence was entertaining and the special effects were nice to see as the CGI was pretty well done (hence the enormous budget). The sound effects and background music (including that popular "Princes of the Universe" song by Queen) were very good too even in the studio with standard Dolby Surround system where we saw this.
The film had a very large cast who seemed to enjoy themselves here especially Jared Leto who along with the director Travis Knight (Bumblebee etc) were praised by critics. In fact it gotten an OK enough rating (though not up to the level of fresh). Meanwhile audience especially the generation who knew & loved He-man were pretty receptive. However whether this would be a major success to warrant the start of a new franchise might be too challenging due to that huge budget. Obviously I would have loved this to be continued as I like the characters. Btw the movie had a long duration of 140 minutes including closing credits. There were two mid end credit scenes which should brought excitement to those who were fans of the series and a post end credit scene. All of them seemed to tease for future potential sequels.
Aside from the names above, the other supporting cast included James Purefoy (The Veil mini series etc) & Charlotte Riley (The Peripheral TV series etc) as Adam's parents King Randor and Queen Marlena respectively, Morena Baccarin (The Wrecking Crew etc) as the Sorceress, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Alpha etc) as Malcolm/Fisto and many more. They even added cameo from the 1987 first adaptation. Yes this one was the second live action adaptation which I got to say is far superior than the first. I tried watching that one as it was available on Prime Video, but sadly had to stop after 15 minutes as I could not stand it due to the terrible visuals (they certainly did not age well). In case you are not aware, He-man started from the release of toy figure by Mattel together with comic books and later popularised by the animated series.
Overall this was an enjoyable & fun sword and sorcery film with plenty of entertaining action supported by good special effects and light story. It's a family friendly movie without graphic detail violence which explained PG-13 rating in the US but surprisingly deemed suitable for all ages in Indonesia. For me and my wife, although it was very light but we did feel the story might be little hard to understand for very young kids. There were also quite a lot of humor which we liked though they were probably not to everyone's taste. So if you are feeling nostalgic or just want to have simple fun, I think you would be entertained by this one just like it did for us. Sure it was not the best written and sometimes there were parts that could be done to make more sense, but we did not really mind. However if you are not a big fan of He-man and hoping for a more complex story with less jokes, then it might not be satisfying for you. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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