MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

STARRING: Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Meg Foster, Billy Barty, Jon Cypher, Courteney Cox, James Tolkan

1987, 106 Minutes, Directed by: Gary Goddard

Halfway through this live action version of the popular early 1980s kiddies TV show (my kid brother was crazy about it - even though he would probably deny it today), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, I wondered what I had done wrong to deserve all this pain and suffering. Did I pillage villages in a previous life? Did I decapitate their women and sell their children into slavery?

Then I realised that I was doing this to myself, that all I had to do was stand up and switch off the TV (there was no remote) and simply go like the people around me did. Yet, I stuck it through the sight of Dolph (Universal Soldier, that Russian boxer in one of the Rocky movies, I forgot which one) Lundgren prancing about semi-naked like Conan the Barbarian. After a while I ran out with jokes about the worst 1980s hairstyles and fashions that I have seen on display in a very long time. It wasn't really funny anyway - I was there back then, damn it!

I stuck it through the overdone heroic symphonic music score by Bill Conti until I was battered senseless by it. Inspired by the music John Williams wrote for Star Wars, but sounding worse than James Horner on an off day (Krull!). It was a Golan/Globus production (they made some of the worst 1980s movies ever - Superman IV or Missing In Action ring any bells?) which should have warned me: this is the movie that the mad scientist in Mystery Science Theater 3000 would use to conquer the Earth!

I stuck through the bad acting (did you spot the girl from Friends?), the horrible dialogue, the laughable make-up, the sub-Return of the Jedi laser fire special effects (how on earth did they manage to get legendary effects man Richard Edlund involved in this?), the ridiculous costumes, the phoney sets, the repetitive action. Like I said, I could have stood up and switched off the TV and any point. That doesn't mean I was punished for past sins - it just means that I was a devout masochist . . .

See also: Cold Fusion Video Reviews.