I was born in 1988, so by the time I was old enough to really enjoy He-Man, he had already been kind of dethroned by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I know my brother Brandon enjoyed it, as we still had merchandise used for birthday parties tied to this very film when I was very little. With the recent movie already out in theaters, I decided to give this old, almost 40-year-old movie a watch. It’s a mix of good and bad.
Dolph Lundgren plays He-Man, and he really does look the part. This was actually two years after he played Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, so he was already pretty well known at the time. However, he was apparently still struggling with mastering English, and it really shows in his acting. Even so, he’s still a pretty cool action hero to watch on the big screen. The movie also reminded me a lot of Star Wars, and I guess that’s not a coincidence since Mattel originally created the He-Man toy line after turning down George Lucas when he wanted them to produce Star Wars toys. One thing about this movie is that it does very little storytelling about what makes He-Man who he is. I also don’t believe the movie mentions his alter ego, Prince Adam, at all.
And like any movie featuring He-Man, Skeletor is obviously a major part of it. However, the makeup and costume department either couldn’t or wouldn’t make him fully accurate to the source material because he should have had greenish skin on his bony face. In some ways, he almost feels like a totally different character. Still, Frank Langella said this was one of his favorite roles ever, and he apparently took the movie as seriously as he could because his kids were such big fans of the cartoon. He’s definitely the best actor in the movie without a doubt.
A lot of the characters in this movie are very cheesy. Meg Foster does have an imposing presence as Evil-Lyn, but her subordinates not so much. Just like with He-Man and Skeletor, the movie does a poor job of explaining any of their backstories. I guess the filmmakers simply assumed that you had already watched the cartoon, but that doesn’t work for everybody.
And strangely enough, the vast majority of the movie takes place on Earth and not Eternia. I read that this was because they could film outdoors in California for a lot less money than it would have cost to build fantasy sets in a studio. So you have a simple Earth girl and, holy crap, that’s Courteney Cox. This was about seven years before Friends premiered, so she was basically an unknown at the time. In fact, this was only the second film she appeared in.
The major plot of the movie is very simple, almost to the point of being too simplistic. He-Man good, Skeletor bad, throw some Earthlings into the mix, and you get a movie that is kind of cool in some ways and very disappointing in others.
But I’ll admit that I still like it. It’s a true 1980s movie despite the cheese and special effects that weren’t exactly cutting edge even back in 1987. It feels a little too much like Star Wars, but in a way that gives it some extra cool factor. What I also found interesting is that the majority of the cast who acted in this movie almost 40 years ago are still alive. That’s pretty impressive considering not everyone was exactly a spring chicken in this one like Courteney Cox was.