Nicholas Galitzine as Adam aka He-Man struggles to put forth much of a coherent character, he's asked to do an impossible task oscillating wildly from (relatively weak) comedy to shining hero. He does his best to make some sense of what's on the page and synthesis it into something coherent but no matter who was cast it's not something that could have worked. Leto's vocal performance(and maybe his physical performance, it's unclear) are fun and effective, there seems to be understanding of what movie he's in. The supporting cast otherwise is filled with talent- Idris Elba, Morena Baccarin, Camila Mendes(in bizarre blue contacts), Sasheer Zamata, James Purefoy, Alison Brie, and on and on. But from the script to the direction the tone, the vibe, just doesn't come together. Is this for kids? For adults? Is it a comedy? Is it an action/adventure? There's so much packed in, so many ideas and references, its more a shotgun blast of a flick rather than a cogent story.
Visually it looks pretty good, they didn't skimp on the CG, but some of the action sequences and shots are straight-up lifted from relatively recent Marvel and DC movies(there's a lightening-trailing leap right out of Thor: Ragnarök, there's a classic Zack Snyder slow-mo punchathon finale etc.). The score is this whimsical retro hair mental explosion. The costuming is near exact to the action figures. Clearly made with a ton of fan passion taken as a whole you struggle to understand who this is supposed to be for and why a studio would cough up $200M for it. In how much energy and time and interest went into this compared to how large of a miscalculation it is it's reminiscent of Warcraft.
Middle-aged men's passion for a toy(or cartoon) in search of an appropriate vessel.
Currently in theaters.
Stream It.
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