I Have the Power!
Masters of the Universe (2026) restores the human soul.
“By the Power of Grayskull… I have the POWER!” As a kid, I heard these words every Sunday evening on television. Except it wasn’t in America but in socialist Yugoslavia (Bosnia, to be specific), and these famous words were dubbed in Croatian. The American animated series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ran between 1983 to 1985, and it made it to Yugoslavia a little bit later with only 13 episodes out of 130 that were originally made. It was very popular, and we desperately looked for more bootleg episodes in underground video stores (or as we called it videoteque).
As a young girl, I devoured everything American, and He-Man was no exception. We never got to see more episodes, and then Yugoslavia fell apart, and then the war started, and my life was shrouded in chaos. But, like many American blockbuster movies and American heroes (likely and unlikely)—Rambo, Chuck Norris, Indiana Jones—He-Man was part of that American vocabulary for me. It symbolized childhood, “the before the war” existence, and I recall it with happiness.
(Decades later, out of curiosity, I did eventually get to see more than 13 episodes, thanks to YouTube, and in English!)
When I saw the trailer for the film Masters of the Universe, I was intrigued but skeptical. Today’s climate is defined by perpetual chaos, and I’m always trepidatious about the approach filmmakers take in any movie, let alone an adaptation of a famous animated series. I missed the film when it came out in theaters, but a few days ago, I watched it on Amazon Prime, and not only did it not disappoint, it was perfect in every way, and it’s the movie we need right now.