In Review: ‘Masters of the Universe,’ ‘Carolina Caroline’

Masters of the Universe
Dir. Travis Knight
141 min.

Here’s the thing about Masters of the Universe, a new adaptation of the seemingly deathless toyline/multimedia franchise launched by Mattel in 1982: Late in the movie, there’s a shot of the film’s hero, Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine), and his warrior companion/sort-of love interest Teela (Camila Mendes) riding into battle astride a giant, mostly green talking cat. It’s kind of a litmus test. Those completely immune to the appeal of such silliness will probably check their watches and roll their eyes. The rest of us will have to acknowledge that they’re watching probably the best possible Masters of the Universe movie imaginable.

Which isn’t to say Masters of the Universe is a great movie. But it works so hard to win over both diehard fans and skeptical outsiders with a combination of self-aware humor and old-fashioned blockbuster spectacle that it’s impossible not to admire both the effort and its modest but undeniably charming results. It’s the cinema of “You gotta hand it to ’em,” as in, “You gotta give it to ’em: this Masters of the Universe movie should be terrible but it’s not.”

Directed by Travis Knight (who accomplished a similar feat with his winning Transformers spin-off Bumblebee), Masters of the Universe strikes a sometimes wobbly balance between the grandiose fantasy of its kid-targeted source material and a winking acknowledgement of that source material’s innate ridiculousness aimed at older fans. That it includes a character named “Fisto” (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson) who can do spectacular damage to enemies with his metal hand while also including jokes about the different possible uses of the word “fisting” pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the film’s tone. But Knight and the film’s screenwriters (the credits list six contributors to the script and story) also attempt to ground the action in the sincere emotions of a misfit (if stunningly handsome) man trying to figure out where he belongs. If there’s a model here, it’s James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films. Masters of the Universe never reaches their level but it doesn’t fall that short either.

Masters of the Universe opens with Adam explaining the universe’s basic concepts (Eternia, Castle Grayskull, the Power Sword, etc.) in voiceover, a lore dump that’s revealed to be part of a disastrous first date. (To be fair, she did ask him about his past.) The doings of the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto) sent Adam into exile on the more mundane world we know as a child. As an adult he now works in HR in Oklahoma City, where he attempts to resolve conflict with words and tact, not combat. But that doesn’t stop Adam from daydreaming about a magic sword he believes to be part of his destiny, or yearning for a place where he can be his full he-mannic self. When he finds it, however, he’s visited by a new set of problems, starting with the arrival of Skeletor’s forces, then escalating when he follows Teela back to Eternia, which is now under Skeletor’s control.

A little of Masters of the Universe’s cheeky awesomeness goes a long way. The film’s 141-minute running time means there’s a lot of Masters of the Universe’s cheeky awesomeness. It’s not exhausting—if anything, the film’s second half improves on its first—but it does grow repetitive. By the third time someone points out that Skeletor is just plain evil, the joke has grown a bit stale. Leto’s contributions are debatable. His vocal work isn’t that distinct from the character’s cartoon equivalent but Knight makes good use of Skeletor as a sight gag. Alison Brie’s considerably more fun as the nefarious Evil-Lyn and Idris Elba brings a lot of heart to the role of Duncan, Eternia’s fallen-on-hard-times Man-at-Arms who finds a new sense of purpose when Adam returns. He didn’t have to put in that much work, but he did anyway. Like the movie itself, you gotta hand it to him. —Keith Phipps

By the power of Grayskull, Masters of the Universe has the power in theaters everywhere starting tonight.

Carolina Caroline
Dir. Adam Carter Rehmeier
106 min.

The challenge for a lovers-on-the-lam thriller like Carolina Caroline is outrunning its predecessors, which are the dragnet that keeps closing around it, with roadside checkpoints at all the highways heading out of town. When Caroline (Samara Weaving), a lonely gas station attendant in rural Texas, eyes a handsome drifter named Oliver (Kyle Gallner) who’s running a short-change scam on her boss, the look on her face is all-too-familiar. She’s Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde. She’s Sissy Spacek in Badlands. She’s a hothouse flower looking for adventure and this handsome stranger is her ticket out of town, mostly because the present and future look intolerably boring. Though Caroline possesses a moral character that sets her apart from Dunaway’s eager outlaw and Spacek’s passive teenager, she’s willing to table it for the time being, because the con is so petty and man pulling it seems fun to be around. 

Eventually the little differences between Carolina Caroline and its influences add up to something more significant, but the film lacks the same texture and scope as an American road movie with more on its mind than a couple of armed robbers who get in over their heads. As Caroline and Oliver blaze a glossy, clichéd trail through the South, it’s the foreground that grabs the most attention, due to the genuine chemistry between the stars, who play characters who seek pleasure and find it, right up to the point where the crimes shift from petty to potentially lethal. When Caroline asks Oliver how he justifies all the small-time scams that fund his life on the road, she’s satisfied by the explanation that his victims are not the rubes behind the cash register, but the rich shareholders who rip off the country, pay nothing in taxes, and wouldn’t miss the money anyway. The rationalization is good enough. For now. 

Director Adam Carter Rehmeier (Snack Shack), working from a script by William Thomas Dean IV, keeps the focus on Caroline, who Weaving plays with an intriguing ambivalence toward criminality, which at times gives her an illicit, erotic thrill that shades toward Dunaway but at others makes her so anxious that she loses her lunch. She carries some to the emotional damage you might expect in her backstory, namely an absent mother (Kyra Sedgwick) she seeks out in South Carolina, but her father (Jon Gries) is a decent man she loves and trusts, and she abhors the violence that inevitably overwhelms her new life as an outlaw. For his part, Oliver is more willing to harm other people out of self-preservation but even he’s not remote or uncaring, either. Carolina Caroline posits itself as more of a tragic love story than a traditional crime picture, and it’s Weaving’s affecting performance that finally keeps the film ahead of the heat. — Scott Tobias

Carolina Caroline starts separating people from their money in limited release tonight.