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Big, dumb and gloriously camp, He-Man has finally made it to live action again in Masters of the Universe, and the result is exactly the fantasy blockbuster you’d expect, for better and sometimes for worse.

Directed by Travis Knight, the proudly silly film follows Adam Glenn (Nicholas Galitzine), Prince of Eternia, as he finds his way home to defeat the ever-cackling Skeletor (Jared Leto) and return Eternia to glory.

Knight doesn’t strive for reinvention so much as coat the whole thing in colourful chrome and hurl it into a valley of high-fantasy.

The film is at its most alive in the first act, when we find adult Adam recounting his origin story on a date, navigating life on Earth, working in HR of course, and obsessively searching for the lost Sword of Power.

It’s surprisingly fresh and genuinely funny, threatening to become something clever before the rest of the film starts accumulating weight it can’t quite carry.

Once the action shifts back to Eternia, the pacing sags, the emotional beats grow formulaic, and what begins as a clever riff on the mythology settles into a fairly standard hero’s journey.

It never becomes boring exactly, but it does abandon its most interesting idea for a fantasy blockbuster we’ve largely seen before, landing somewhere between Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok and Lord of the Rings.

Thankfully, everyone involved understood the assignment. Rather than making He-Man a typical tough guy, Masters of the Universe embraces the inherent ridiculousness of its predecessor.

This is ultimately a film about a blond man who transforms into a hunky leather-skirted demigod by holding a giant sword above his head and shouting at the sky, and everyone commits to that completely.

Between the sculpted physiques, melodramatic speeches, glorious blowouts and persistently cheeky jokes, the franchise’s camp legacy is celebrated with open arms (Happy Pride, y’all).

There’s something vaguely egg-cracking about Adam’s journey too, discovering the power was inside him all along, the sword really just permission to become the impossibly buff, harness-wearing version of himself he was always meant to be.

Galitzine is near-perfect casting, a lovable himbo with enough heroic earnestness to sell even the cheesiest dialogue.

As painful as it is to admit, though, Leto is the star of the show, channelling delightful theatrical menace that suits him so completely it almost recontextualises his filmography. Sassy skeletons might simply be his niche.

Alison Brie is similarly delightful as Evil-Lyn, bringing dry wit and exasperated henchwoman energy to every scene. Camila Mendes as Teela feels frustratingly underused, reduced to a subplot that never justifies itself, echoing the film’s larger habit of reaching for more than it attempts to properly develop.

The action is big, loud and frequently fun, shot with enough comic-book energy to carry even the repetitive stretches. The CGI is surprisingly solid, Daniel Pemberton’s score does considerable heavy lifting, and hooray for zero forced hetero romance.

Masters of the Universe is a messy film that wants to be a fantasy epic, a meta comedy, a nostalgia trip and a coming-of-age story all at once.

The result is entertaining but uneven, rarely as sharp or sincere as its best moments suggest it could be.

Still, it’s hard not to admire something so completely committed to being itself. Is it great? Not really.

Is it gloriously silly, self-aware, and packed with enough camp fantasy nonsense to satisfy fans, the gays, people who’s only reference is that meme, and anyone willing to embrace the absurdity?

By the power of Grayskull, camp and the female gaze, absolutely.

Masters of the Universe is in cinemas now.