A Look Back: The Running Man (1987)

"This is television, that's all it is. It has nothing to do with people, it's to do with ratings! For fifty years, we've told them what to eat, what to drink, what to wear. For Christ's sake, Ben, don't you understand? Americans love television. They wean their kids on it. Listen. They love game shows, they love wrestling, they love sports and violence. So what do we do? We give 'em what they want! We're number one, Ben, that's all that counts, believe me."

-Damon Killian, in The Running Man (1987) 

Based on a 1982 sci-fi novel by Richard Bachman (Stephen King, actually), the motion picture version of The Running Man (1987) arrived in theaters during the Great Year of Arnold Schwarzenegger; the very season that also brought audiences John McTiernan's spectacular Predator.  

Although viewers typically and rightly associate Schwarzenegger with action and s.f. films, The Running Man ably -- and rather surprisingly -- functions best as a pointed satire of American television and politics.   

While the writing and performances in this dystopian film tend towards the razor sharp, the action sequences in the film don't always hold up as well in terms of 21st century expectations. They feel episodic and repetitive.  To be certain, the film is a highly entertaining experience from start to finish, but never, precisely, the adrenalin-inducing thrill ride that some action fans might hope for or expect.

Still, it seems the film's trademark action scenes did inspire a real life competition TV series titled American Gladiators (1989 - 1996), right down to the spandex costumes. Also, one might argue that the episodic nature of the action sequences in the film in some way mirrors the episodic nature of television programming, which adheres strictly to formula, as unalterable as death or taxes.

Bachman/King's literary version of The Running Man remains far more grim, serious and spectacular in approach than the Schwarzenegger film, a fact which makes the possibility of a more source-faithful movie adaptation a possibility, especially in this age of remakes. The novel is set in a totalitarian America in 2025 and involves a man, Ben Richards, "running" on a popular TV program so as to pay for expensive medicine for his ailing daughter.  

The movie version eliminates this important character background and motivation, as well as the novel's incendiary, unforgettable ending; one which transforms Richards from a game show contestant to a bona-fide enemy of the state, martyr and so-called "terrorist."  

The 1987 movie version is less interested in creating real, identifiable characters and building a believable dystopian future world than it is in commenting humorously (if accurately) on aspects of our own  culture.  Not there's anything wrong with that.

Like I wrote above, it's the biting satire of American media and politics that makes The Running Man such a rewarding film to watch over almost forty years after it was released. If anything, the film's observations about our entertainment seems only more apt in 2025, after we've all endured more than two decades of reality television programming.

The movie version of The Running Man actually has much more in common with Roger Corman and Paul Bartel's trail-blazing Death Race 2000 (1975) than it does with King's literary portrait of a totalitarian future America.

In both Death Race 2000 and The Running Man, the media and the government have joined forces -- through a popular TV show -- to divert  the attention of the poverty-stricken masses. While the country fails, these "bread and circuses" successfully keep the populace distracted from real problems, namely the class warfare between the haves and the have-nots.  In both films, the popular TV show also overtly focuses on bloodshed and violence, either in the form of a cross-country race or a pedestrian chase.

Directed by Paul Michael Glaser, The Running Man also shares much in common with another great 1987 science fiction movie: Verhoeven's RoboCop (which I'll be reviewing next Tuesday).

Both cinematic endeavors feature short, satirical commercials and imagery that reveal, at length, how crass and stupid network television can really be. Ironically, considering Schwarzenegger's presence, The Running Man also shares RoboCop's  anti-establishment suspicion of the ascendant right wing in America during the eighties.  

Where RoboCop humorously depicted the end result of privatizing anything and everything in America, including the police force, The Running Man gazes more directly at the cult of celebrity in America and the ever-increasing blending of politics and entertainment.  

Lest we forget it, a Hollywood actor was President of the United States in 1987 and, because of his advanced age, some folks considered him more a showman by many than an actual leader in terms of policy and administration. The Running Man takes that premise further, envisioning a wholesale blending of entertainment and politics at every level of government.  

For instance, at one point in the film, Killian (game show host Richard Dawson) barks "Get me the Justice Department...Entertainment Division."  In the same scene, he orders an underling to "get me the President's agent."  In another sequence, "court-appointed talent agents" are discussed.

The idea here is that Hollywood and politics are a match made in Heaven (or is it Hell?).  Both Hollywood and Washington D.C. focus on the same important task: selling imagery and fantasy, not reality, to an American populace desperately seeking hope, truth and justice.

The film is even more cynical than that description suggests. The Running Man posits that concepts such as justice are all just a game, anyway...a spin of the wheel of fortune.

And in the world of The Running Man, freedom isn't even on the board.  You can win such great prizes (if you're lucky...) as "trial by jury," "suspended sentence" and even "a full pardon," but real liberty is absent.  

"I'm not into politics.  I'm into survival."

The Running Man is set in the year 2019. The World Economy has collapsed and food, oil and natural resources are in short supply all over the United States.  

Because of these crises, a police state has arisen in America.  No dissent is tolerated, and television is controlled and created entirely by the State.

Helicopter pilot Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger) is arrested by his fellow officers when he refuses to open fire on unarmed civilians during an urban food riot.  But the State manipulates video footage of this event and thus transforms the innocent Richards into "The Butcher of Bakersfield."  

This is another example of government's manipulation of media, and media imagery in the film; the transformation of a real-life hero into a hiss-able villain for wide-scale public consumption.  An easily digestible image or sound-bite is packaged and sold, rather than a possibly-damaging, harder-to-countenance reality.

Richards is sent to a work camp and spends the next eighteen months there.  After an escape from the labor camp, Ben Richards is apprehended by authorities thanks to lovely, Amber (Maria Conchita Alonso), a citizen who believes the lies about "The Butcher."

When Damon Killian (Dawson), host of the number one TV show, The Running Man, sees news footage of Richards in action, the ratings-hungry showman realizes he's discovered the next great star.  He quickly negotiates to have Ben Richards turned over to him.

Richards reluctantly appears on The Running Man, a game show in which contestants run for their lives...against terrible odds. There, he is pitted against government "heroes" -- really bloodthirsty killers --with names such as Sub-Zero, Bloodlust, Buzzsaw, Dynamite and Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura).  

However, if Richards can hook up with the People's Network, a growing resistance movement, and gain control of the Running Man transmission, Killian may have a few surprises coming his way...

"Mr. Richards, I'm your court-appointed theatrical agent."

The Running Man works overtime, and with more than a modicum of cleverness, to create a world in which image and reality don't match up. 

Again, this is what I have often termed the Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid/Don't Worry Be Happy duality of the decade.  

Americans were asked in the eighties s to believe that they could spend (much) more on national defense and pay lower taxes and shrink government all at the same time.  

This was the essence of  the argument in 1980, but by 1988, government had grown considerably, adding 61,000 Federal jobs to Washington. Also, taxes were raised three times, in 1983 (gas tax), in 1984, and in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Finally, America piled on 2.7 trillion dollars to the national debt in those eight years.  The people were sold the very appealing mantra of lower taxes, smaller government and affordable defense, but that was not the reality that was delivered by Washington D.C.

The Running Man reflects the huge gap between reality and fantasy that we saw in real life during those years.  Damon Killian -- whose name always makes me think of Simon Cowell --  is a character who puts on a face of love and kindness for audiences. He kisses old ladies, and hand-holds nervous contestants. But he is actually a mean-spirited, power-mad, control-freak. In one scene, Killian nearly trips on a newly waxed floor in his office building. An employee apologizes to him, and Killian graciously accepts the apology to the employee's face. As soon as the custodian is gone, Killian orders him to be fired. The face of the establishment is affable, but the actions are destructive to those not in power.

This is just one small example of the reality/imagery gap. As mentioned above, Killian has the Bakersfield food riot videotape edited so that it presents a lie, the very opposite of the truth. A man who should be lauded as a hero, Richards, is instead despised as a villain...all so Killian can get better ratings. Similarly, Killian makes another attempt to deceive audiences late in the film, utilizing "traveling mattes" and other state-of-the-art special effects techniques to make it appear as though Richards is killed in the contest when, in fact, he has escaped unharmed.  The message: make people live in a constructed reality, rather than face real life.  Today we call this an ideological bubble.

Another of Killian's lies: last season's winners on The Running Man are not celebrating on a tropical beach somewhere, they've been murdered by Killian.  

Described succinctly, everything Killian does in public and for the TV show is a show. It bears no resemblance to reality. It's just show business...but this behavior is especially sinister in the film because lives are on the line, and the movie has explicitly connected show business to politics and government.

The people of America aren't exactly spared harsh criticism by this satire either. Although Killian repeatedly discusses "traditional morality" and such on The Running Man, the people in America are actually nourished on a steady diet of violence, avarice and perversion.  

We see this fact exemplified in one of the commercials made for the film, Climbing for Dollars, which shows hungry dogs nipping at the feet of contestants as they climb a rope, scrambling to collect money.

At another point, we see a poster for a television series titled "The Hate Boat."   Again, this is not traditional morality, it's sex and violence as governmental distraction or sleight-of-hand.  As long as we're watching the telly, we're not watching the actions of our overlords as they dismantle democracy.

The audience members watching The Running Man are particularly fickle too.  At first they mourn when their gladiators die in battle.  But soon enough, they are hooting and hollering in favor of Richards, the very man who killed their "favorites."

Again, the projected image is one of decency and traditional values, but it's not real.  "Words can't express" how sad the audience feels at the loss of their heroes says Killian. But then he cuts to commercials, and sells more "Cadre Cola."

Apparently mourning can't get in the way of making a few bucks. And the audience can't even remember who they were rooting for before the commercial break.  

The Running Man works efficiently as a satire because it reveals so well how films and TV can, in the wrong hands, be utterly manipulated and manipulative. The film's master-stroke regarding this leitmotif involves the casting of Richard Dawson, former host of Family Feud. Hiring Dawson was a real coup, because he very ably mocks his familiar game show persona but then layers on the screen character's private, caustic face. Dawson makes for an extraordinary villain by playing on our expectations and then totally subverting them.  

In The New York Times, Vincent Canby noted: "Mr. Dawson, who was the host of television's long-running ''Family Feud'' game show, is wonderfully comic as a fellow who'd star his own beloved dad as the ''running man'' if it would buy him a few points. His hair always perfectly blow-dried, his haberdashery immaculate, Mr. Dawson steals the movie as a personality composed of equal parts of Phil Donahue, Merv Griffin and Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore (Mickey) Robespierre."

More than the imposing Schwarzenegger, Dawson is the fuel that drives The Running Man, making it so very wicked, so much fun, and seemingly so real.

That established, this is also one of the Governator's most impressive film performances. The Washington Post wrote: "Pumped and primed for self-parody, the burly star proves as funny as he is ferocious in this tough guy's commentary on America's preoccupation with violence and game shows."  I agree with that review as well.  If Dawson is willing to mock his public image here (and he is), Schwarzenegger courageously goes down that same path with his co-star, even mimicking his most famous screen line, "I'll be back," and opening himself up for Dawson's great comeback.

"Only in reruns..."

There's something very post-modern happening here. The Running Man tackles the unholy juncture of television and politics at the same time that it playfully pivots off our intimate knowledge and affection for Dawson's and Schwarzennegger's familiar screen personas.  It's a very, very...meta equation, for lack of a better term.

I only wish that the action scenes in The Running Man were a little more varied, a little less predictable  A killer is called on stage, and then he goes in to hunt Richards.  Richard is victorious and it's time for another hunter.  Rinse and repeat. Watching the film, you get the distinct sense that all of the talent was energized by the film's witty ideas, but that the action scenes were sort of left to fend for themselves.  Of course, as I noted above, the repetitive nature of the fight scenes could be a deliberate allusion to the repetitive nature of game shows.  We tune in every week to see the same thing, don't we?

Still, The Running Man isn't out of steam, even today. It gets a lot of the "future" detail just right.  From fears of an economic collapse to fuel shortages, the film makes some pretty accurate guesses about the 2010s. At one point, Ben Richards books his escape route/travel itinerary on an interactive television set, a precursor to something we do on the Internet now all the time.  

And also, of course, this 1987 film seems to understand that our television and politics were headed towards a generation of ingrained and unimaginable cruelty.

It's not a pretty picture, but I bet that with just a few tweaks here and there, Killian's The Running Man would be a pretty big hit with some people these days....

Cult-Movie Review: Hellraiser (1987)

At the risk of embarrassing some readers, I will nonetheless write the following statement regarding Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987).

It’s all about sex.

If that description is too debauching, just consider for a moment how much of our great literature actually concerns sex.

What started the Trojan War, and led to the events of Homer’s Iliad?

Sexual desire (for Helen).

Or consider, Lysistrata.

Or Othello.

At the center of all those tales is the human sex drive, or perhaps put more aptly, the mysteries of the human sex drive.  How it can be manipulated.  How it can be used.  How it can be sated.

An extremely gory horror film from 1987, Hellraiser is very much in the same camp as the aforementioned works of literature. The film involves, specifically, one “uptight and frigid” woman’s desire to experience, again, the best sex of her life. 

That sex (with Frank Cotton) is so amazing that Julia (Clare Higgins) -- as we see in the film -- would do literally anything to experience it again, even commit murder…repeatedly. Family ties fall by the wayside as Julia single-mindedly pursues a resurrection of not only her lover, but her slumbering passion.

The later Hellraiser films -- as horror sequels often do -- adopt a much more literal, straightforward stance.  Those films are about, simply, people opening the gates to Hell and their adventures with Cenobites such as Pinhead (Doug Bradley).

But Barker’s inaugural film is about sexual frustration in Julia, and sexual awakening, after a fashion, in Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence).

Barker explores these notions about human sexuality -- about the flesh -- through repeated instances of remarkable (and either sensual or horrific) visual symbolism.

I have read, over the decades, negative reviews of Hellraiser that don’t understand why people like so much a movie concerning an “evil box.”

In some cases, those critics have failed to understand the central idea that built the franchise; the idea that Hellraiser isn’t about opening an evil box, but rather  mastering and unlocking the puzzle-box of human sexuality.

The Hellraiser movies go from brilliant to terrible in short order, and I’ll review at least the first four in the next few weeks here on the blog, but the first film remains a masterpiece of the macabre primarily for its deep exploration into these ideas about sex and desire.

“Some things have to be endured, and that’s what makes the pleasures so sweet.”

Julia (Clare Higgins) and Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson) move into the family house formerly occupied by Larry’s loner brother Frank (Sean Chapman). Julia and Frank once had an affair, and she covets the memory of it.

But now, bizarrely, a chance arises for Julia to have a second chance with Frank. He died in the house at the hands of demonic beings called Cenobites. In particular, he opened a puzzle -- the Lament Configuration -- that opened a door between Earth and Hell.

Somehow, Frank escaped the tortures of the Cenobites, and was left for dead.  His consciousness and bones still survive, but for him to be whole once more, he must have Julia bring him the blood of the living to devour.

She does so, bringing back strange men to the house with a promise of sex, and then bludgeoning them to death with a hammer.

Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), Larry's daughter, grows increasingly concerned for her father, and is troubled by bad dreams. One day, she goes to the house and learns what Frank and Julia are up to.  She also gets her hands on the Lament Configuration Puzzle, summoning the Cenobites as Frank once did.

Now Kirsty must make a deal with Pinhead (Doug Bradley), the leader of the Cenobites, to turn over Frank, lest they tear her soul apart. instead...

“Like love…only real.”

I first saw Hellraiser (1987) in movie theaters in 1987. I was seventeen, and had never seen such a bloody film.  And yet, I could detect on repeat viewings (especially after I was in my twenties), how all the blood and violence in the film served a dramatic purpose. The cold, empty Julia would do anything to feel her blood pumping again, to feel the heights of passion, even it meant spilling the blood of someone else, someone she didn't care about.

Julia’s passion for Frank and blood-letting are first connected by Barker in a remarkable (and remarkably disgusting...) bit of cross-cutting early on. 

Julia is in the attic, remembering the first time Frank made love to her (over her wedding gown, actually…). 

Meanwhile, downstairs, Larry is attempting, with several movers, to get a mattress up a narrow staircase. The mattress becomes stuck, and Larry must pull at it. He tugs at it repeatedly, even as we see Frank thrusting atop Julia. 

Unfortunately for Larry, he drags his hand across a rusty nail. Blood fountains from his hand.

The symbolism is unmistakable. As Julia has intercourse with Frank and achieves orgasm (in her flashback), that fevered motion is mirrored by Larry’s hand, dragging the mattress. Both moments end with, presumably, the release of fluids.  

But in this case, Julia’s driving memory of sex with Frank is linked to explicitly to injury, to blood and death. 

Indeed, that’s what her passion will ultimately bring to Larry, his family, and anyone else that gets into her orbit. Her love for Frank is a death sentence to everyone else.

That’s not the only time that visual symbolism comes into play. 

Consider specifically how the puzzle box, the Lament Configuration, is opened. The demons are released after the user runs a finger across a small circle of gold filigree.  

This small circle (by a roaming finger...) across a surface is mirrored by Julia and Frank’s sign of affection for one another. Several times in the film, they run their fingers across each other’s lips in a circle…even when fingers and lips are drenched in spilled blood.  

The little circle that opens the box -- and this sensuous touch of the soft lips -- is also, apparently, a metaphor or stand-in for clitoral stimulation. That stimulation suggests another kind of gateway, one to passion and sexual satisfaction.  Frank is a kind of hyper-sexualized figure, an explorer in the realms of pleasure and pain, and he is adept, apparently, at opening the puzzle -- or unlocking a woman’s desire. Julia is ultimately undone by Frank (at least in this movie), because he uses these skills to get his life back, but doesn’t truly love her. He betrays her, instead.

I have always considered Julia's journey to be the emotional and thematic core of Hellraiser. The family house where virtually all the action occurs even seems to be a metaphor for the character of Julia. It is an empty place that, nonetheless, houses inside a monstrous or terrible desire.  

The house hides Frank, a dormant figure waiting to be re-activated. And Julia holds him inside her sealed-off heart, wishing him back.

Consider, in comparison, Kirsty’s journey. 

A young woman, she is permanently infantilized as "Daddy’s little girl." Kirsty is solicitous of her dad’s attention, and constantly worrying/tending to him. She runs to him whenever she has a problem.

Kirsty is also beautiful, and “ripe” as Frank describes her. She is totally unaware of her own (dawning) sexual power.  Kirsty's beauty arouses the movers in the house, and then Kirsty goes to a kitchen sink, which explodes with water, unexpectedly, in her face.  

Kirsty is surprised by this explosion, because she is unaware of the power she wields.  

To put it another way, Kirsty has not realized the power to unlock the puzzle box of her sexual power. But where Julia’s passion was associated explicitly with spilled blood, Kirsty’s is not. 

Instead, her desire is pure, and visualized by the water. Life hasn't twisted Kirsty yet, hasn't transformed her into something sick and co-dependent.

Later, Kirsty has sex with her boyfriend, Steve, and in general seems to have a much healthier attitude about passion than do either Frank or Julia. 

So when she gets her hands on the Lament Configuration what does Kirsty do? 

First, she teases Frank with the promise of controlling it. She does this not as a flirt, not out of desire, but so as to save her own life. 

Kirsty has realized, suddenly, that she possesses something he very much wants. She can bargain with it, and hold him at bay. Kirsty now has an awareness of the power she yields, and again, that's a metaphor for sexual awakening.

Then, Kirsty uses the box for another purpose.  She sends back the demons; destroying the sickness that Frank and Julia created. She wields the box for an end that saves her life, and saves others.  

Kirsty escapes the out-sized pull her father has on her life (exemplified by Frank’s gross come-on line, “Come to Daddy,”) and demonstrates responsible control over the Lament Configuration. She can use the box to destroy her demons, not summon them, not wallow in them. She governs her passions. She doesn't let them govern her, the way that Julia does.

This fact seems plain in the imagery that connects the two women. For a moment, each woman has a hand on the box. But Julia has destroyed herself playing with it. Kirsty takes it for purposes of escape.

What is presented in Hellraiser then, uniquely, is a story of two very different women. One lives in the memory of the past, and covets a sick relationship that gave her pleasure. The other woman is able to grow up, move beyond her family unit, and demonstrate an ability to conquer the threats that she encounters.

I admire Hellraiser so much not for the goopy special effects, the downright bloody horror, or even the spectacular and immortal Cenobite designs, but because the film focuses so clearly on Julia and Kirsty, and their encounters interacting with the “puzzle” of flesh, skin, and desire. 

The imagery -- whether revealed in cross-cutting, or related to the mastery of the Lament Configuration, enhance the film’s themes beautifully.

For me, no other Hellraiser film so perfectly captures the drive and illogic of human behavior. The sequels move into the realm of mythology.  I like Hellbound very much, but it’s such a different animal. 

In short, Hellraiser is all a about a woman bringing unsuspecting men back to a filthy room and beating them to death with claw hammers…so she can have the best sex of her life again. These particular scenes -- three of them -- are played to perfection by Higgins. Julia is both anxious and excited as she lures her would-be lovers to their doom. On that first encounter, she’s thinking about committing murder. Her mark is thinking about having sex. The line “there’s a first time for everything,” captures the moment perfectly. It is true of both murder and sex.

Once the Hellraiser movies beyond both Julia and Kirsty, they seem a whole lot less intriguing.

Hellraiser also concerns tactile pleasures in a way that explores the Zeitgeist of its time. We experience the world through our flesh, through our skin. We want to do -- at least sometimes -- what feels good, not what it is actually right.  

That equation seems like a perfect metaphor for the excess of the 1980s, and so Hellraiser speaks to its time in a remarkably powerful way.

In a decade of “greed is good,” how far do you take greed?  In this case, greed transmits, pretty much, as sexual avarice. A merchant asks -- in the film’s book-end questions: “what’s your pleasure?” 

That’s the question, isn’t it? How far would somebody go to feel good? As far as Julia goes? Or Frank?

Today we remember Hellraiser as our introduction to Pinhead, Chatterer, Butterball, and the Female. But these Cenobites -- if I recall correctly from Paul Kane’s brilliant book about the series, The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy -- only appear on screen for seven minutes.  These “explorers in the further realm of experience” carry such incredible impact, even today, because they are well-performed, and carefully-designed. But also because we don't see them too often, or get to know them too well.

Pinhead radiates a kind of noble or regal brand of evil. He’s a monster, and yet, in some way, he can be approached with reason and logic. At least if you have something to bargain with.  

The others are frightfully monstrous, and they make you wonder how they can be seen as “angels to some” instead of as “demons.”

This first Hellraiser film also features some blind alleys that were never adequately explored in the sequels. After this film, for instance, we never again saw The Engineer, or the bone demon that takes the box from the fire during the denouement. Those seem fascinating elements of the mythology that ought to be developed at some point.

But more troubling, I feel, is the fact that post-Hellbound films don’t’ really deal convincingly or well with human foibles.  

Pinhead and his buddies should function as ruthless exploiters of human vice, and each film in the franchise, conceivably, could concern the downward spiral of someone like Frank, or Julia. And in Hellbound, Pinhead notes that “hands don’t” summon him, only “desire” does. That edict is dropped like a hot potato by the third film, and Pinhead, Angelique and other Cenobites torture anyone who haphazardly opens the box and toys with it. 

That paradigm takes away much of the power of the franchise and robs Hellraiser of its galvanizing factor; the opening up of the complex puzzle of human desire.

Movie Trailer: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

The Films of 1987: Masters of the Universe

Masters of the Universe (1987) is a silver screen fantasy based on the Mattel toy-line and Filmation cartoon TV series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983 – 1985). 

Although the film is decidedly a low-budget one, and it takes some liberties with the “mythos” of the TV series established at the time, the Gary Goddard movie also boasts the underrated benefit of directness. 

Uniformly, the movie lacks pretension or distraction, eschews the requisite “angst” and obligatory three hour running time of most modern fantasy films, and generally opts for straight-forward action over camp.

While it’s true that Masters of the Universe doesn’t boast much in terms of narrative or thematic depth, it also moves fast enough-- and with enough clarity -- that you don’t really mind.

Masters of the Universe depicts its “fish-out-of-water” story, set on Earth, with a kind of blunt-faced “move along” verve, and that is a welcome approach. For example, you might start to ask questions about why a man in a loin cloth and cape, wielding a sword, is teamed up with high-tech soldiers in futuristic armor.  But by the time you enunciate the interrogative, the movie has moved on to its next set-piece.

Similarly, Masters of the Universe’s production design, make-up (by William Stout) and costumes are actually all pretty strong, and -- per the director’s intent -- seem to directly imply a Jack Kirby-esque cosmos. If you are a fan of Kirby (as I am…), some of the visual and thematic touches here seem to recall his impressive illustrations.

Perhaps Masters of the Universe’s greatest deficit is Dolph Lundgren’s central performance as He-Man. Lundgren looks great, obviously, but resolutely fails to imbue He-Man with any color, shading or personality. 

This big “blank” spot at the center of the action takes away from the film’s low budget virtues and charm.

Now, Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the world’s greatest actor either, but nonetheless he was able to imbue his Conan with a sense of humor, cunning, and personal charisma. It’s not that you need a great actor for this kind of fantasy role it’s that we need to know who He-Man is, and why he fights. You need someone who projects a kind of inner intelligence or inner life, and Lundgren just doesn’t transmit it in this case.

Masters of the Universe comes from Cannon Films, the house which pretty much put the final nail in the coffin of the Superman movie franchise with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1986).  Masters of the Universe is a much better, coherent film than that sad, sad effort.

This movie fails to emerge, perhaps, as a widely acknowledged cult classic simply because the story is limited somewhat by the budget, and also by the perimeters of its “fish out of water” scenario.  The fish out of water film was all the rage in the mid-1980s but today seems abundantly less interesting than the (expensive) possibilities of an Eternia-based epic.

I prefer not to use the term “guilty pleasure” because if you like something, and it gives you joy, there’s no reason to feel embarrassed by it.

Masters of the Universe lacks the rollicking confidence and opulence of Flash Gordon (1980), and the sheer genius and imagination of writer David Odell’s other fantasy, The Dark Crystal (1982), but there’s nonetheless a cheeky, ask-no-questions jauntiness or zeal about the movie.    

If you allow yourself to “key” in on that note, to reference the film’s musical McGuffin, then Masters of the Universe is sort of a good old fashioned, straight-up fun B-movie.

On distant Eternia, the villainous Skeletor (Frank Langella) nearly succeeds in overthrowing the peaceful denizens of the planet, and he seizes Castle Grayskull. Skeletor also captures the kindly Sorceress (Christina Pickles), hoping to absorb her mystical powers and combine them with his own at the coming moonrise, when the “eye” of Grayskull opens.

Meanwhile, the hero of Eternia, He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) along with his friends, Man-at-Arms (Jon Cypher) and Teela (Chelsea Field) encounter a troll-like being, the locksmith and inventor Gwildor (Billy Barty).

Gwildor admits that Skeletor achieved his advantage in battle with a cosmic key that Gwildor made, which can open doorways to any location in the universe. The good news is that Gwildor possesses a second key, and he can use it to transport He-Man and his colleagues inside Grayskull.

Unfortunately, the heroes are not able to save the Sorceress, and retreat into another spatial portal, one which takes them to…Earth.  

Once there on that primitive world, they lose the cosmic key…the only way back to Eternia.

Soon, however, He-Man befriends young Julie (Courteney Cox) and her boyfriend Kevin (Robert Duncan McNeill).  These American teenagers have found the cosmic key and are willing to help He-Man get back home.

But Skeletor and his minion Evil-Lyn (Meg Foster) have already sent monstrous mercenaries like Beast Man through the portal to re-acquire the key…

I must confess that my memories of Masters of the Universe’s visuals were flat out wrong.

I remember seeing the film on VHS -- and perhaps on broadcast TV -- in the late 1980s. My memories are that the film appeared dark, muddy, brown and grainy. The print I saw twenty-something years ago looked…lame.

By contrast, the DVD version I watched this weekend to prep this review looked very vivid. The film’s costumes, make-up and sets are all glittering, colorful, and bright. This fact alone makes Masters of the Universe look a lot less “low-budget” than I erroneously remembered it.

While it’s true that we only see one chamber in all of massive Castle Grayskull, it is nonetheless quite a spectacular and vast one.  

Similarly, Skeletor, his minions and shock-troopers all appear pretty menacing, too, and the optical effects involving lasers, mini-wormholes, blazing swords and the like are likewise satisfactory.  The aforementioned Superman IV barely coheres in terms of special effects presentation, production values and editing.  By comparison, Masters of the Universe looks like a masterpiece.

It’s apparent, of course, that limitations were imposed by the film’s budget; limitations which, I suspect result in this mostly earthbound story, which merely book-ends on Eternia.

The story of He-Man on planet Earth is what is often termed a fish-out-of-water story, and examples from the mid-1980s include Back to the Future (1985), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and Crocodile Dundee (1986].

Like Masters of the Universe, all these films feature protagonists encountering “alien” cultures, or confusing social mores.  The heroes are strangers in a strange land, essentially, combating their ignorance of local customs as well as attempting to complete a mission. 

Unlike those other three films, however, Masters of the Universe doesn’t tread deeply at all into cross-culture conflict, and characters from different worlds hardly seem to ask questions of one another at all. 

Instead, it’s all just a set up for action and more action. The film would have been cleverer if had featured some direct and humorous comparisons between Eternia and Earth, alas. The fish-out-of-water scenario just isn’t used to its maximum efficiency, and this fact reinforces the notion that the setting was, largely, a matter not of creative choice, but of economy.

If humor and social commentary are slighted, some of the visuals remain powerful. 

The moment when Skeletor glides down a small-town U.S.A. Main Street on his clam-shell battle skiff is actually pretty accomplished and resonant.  

Menacing shock-troopers surround him during this night-time incursion, and there’s the legitimate feel of an invasion from another reality. There’s very little that plays as fake or phony about this moment.

Straight-faced and in many scenes lacking self-awareness, Masters of the Universe occasionally showcases a kind of innocent charm.  For example, Frank Langella is terrific as Skeletor and he delivers with panache some subtly amusing lines. 

When waiting for He-Man to appear, for instance, Langella throws away the line “I expect him at any moment,” an under-the-radar reminder that in the (highly-repetitive…) cartoons, Skeletor and He-Man clash repeatedly, and eternally without a clear-cut victor.  

But they always end up facing each other…again. And always just as Skeletor’s plans are finally about to come to fruition.

I also enjoyed Skeletor’s description of Earth as “a primitive and tasteless planet.”

This from a guy with an expressive skull for a face and garbed in a black robe…

In terms of the aforementioned cartoon, Masters of the Universe omits some of the details of the Filmation series. There is no Battle Cat here, alas, and that represents a significant absence. 

On the other hand, there’s also no Orko in the film.

The most memorable image from the Filmation cartoon may be Prince Adam raising his sword and declaring (with reverb): “By the Power of Grayskull…I have the POWER!”

The movie provides audiences a variation on that trademark moment, and it works well within the movie’s context, without being annoying, cheesy or campy. 

Significantly, He-Man never transforms here into his alter-ego of the TV series, “Prince Adam.” 

From a certain perspective, thee absences of Battle Cat or Prince Adam can be easily rationalized away.  In Masters of the Universe, we are treated to a very time-specific tale in which He-Man and his closest friends are on the run, retreating from a surprise attack.

So it’s very possible that there was no time for him to turn into Prince Adam or wrangle Cringer/Battle Cat.

But oppositely, He-Man is such a thin character on paper and on the stage here, that any deepening of him – even in a trite Clark Kent/Superman mode -- would have at least added something to his personality.

The problem with Lundgren’s He Man is that the movie gives us no understanding of his history, personal history, or personality.

Is He-Man a battle-hardened hero?

A knight driven by duty and honor? 

An aristocrat or noble playing at war but becoming a real warrior? 

A cocky superhero?

Lundgren could have selected any approach, from above and tried to bring some depth or definition to the character. Admittedly, the script doesn’t help him much. But nor does his bland, vacant performance help the film overall.

I suppose a key reason to dislike Masters of the Universe is its 1980s approach to fantasy. Here, we get teenagers with mullets, an adventure on Earth, and a relatively un-nuanced battle between good and evil.

There are no epic army clashes, and no radical otherworldly vistas (like we see in Thor: The Dark World [2013]) for instance. Instead, Masters of the Universe gives us a few scuffles, and a view or two of old, familiar Vasquez Rocks.

But unlike the recent Thor film -- which gets bogged down in the technical details of its story and fails to generate any legitimate human emotion, even when Asgard’s matriarch dies -- Masters of the Universe is refreshingly linear, and generously unspoiled by delusions of grandeur. Even with all its deficits, Masters of the Universe, at least, didn’t bore me to death.

On a personal note, I also really dig the Jack Kirby-esque visuals in this 1987 film. 

Take a look at the golden helmet Skeletor wears during the film’s final battle, for one example of this aesthetic. It seems piped in directly from the icon’s Fourth World saga. 

Again, I don’t want to keep making comparisons to Thor: The Dark World, but there really is something to be said for a real life, substantial costume, over CGI armor and the like. There’s obviously a strong Kirby ethos in Dark World, but something about the weight of Skeletor’s helmet here -- the gold and the horns -- that captures a Kirby influence more profoundly or at least more vividly, in my opinion.

Finally, if you believe that movies are like Skeletor’s stated philosophy in the in film -- “I must possess all, or I possess nothing” -- Masters of the Universe might be viewed as a misguided, unfaithful, and low-budget adaptation of a once-popular property.

Like Courtney Cox’s character in the film, you might wish “you could change things…”  

But this He-Man -- while undeniably flawed and small-potatoes by today’s world-exploding, apocalyptic CGI movie standard -- still possesses “the power” to entertain.