A relatively brief review of the Masters of the Universe movie from a critic who got the Castle Grayskull playset for Christmas in 1981:

In 1987, I went to see a live-action Masters of the Universe movie in the theater with my family. I was 10 years old and, by that point, I had been a fan of the franchise's toys, cartoon and other iterations for more than half of my short life. I did not care for it. I was baffled by the creative choices that were made and supremely frustrated by how far it strayed from its source material. At the time, of course, I didn't understand movie budgets, which I imagine explains why so much of it was set on Earth rather than Eternia, and why there were new characters like Blade and Karg* serving as Skeletor's henchmen rather than, say, Mer-Man or Trap Jaw. I also didn't understand the idea of audience or address, and thus had the studio made the argument that maybe that He-Man movie wasn't meant for me, a He-Man fan, I wouldn't have been convinced.The new Masters of the Universe movie sure looks an awful lot more like what 10-year-old me would have appreciated in 1987. I saw a Monday…