Probably like most boys born around the same time as me, I have fond memories of watching He-Man and the Masters of the Universe when I was growing up. Blissfully unaware that it was basically a promotional vehicle for a line of toys (our family budget didn’t really extend to action figures) I would happily watch it. This new 2026 film is the second attempt to translate it to the big screen – 1987’s starred Dolph Lundgren and isn’t exactly fondly remembered (including by me, but that may be because I’ve never seen it) so the team behind this new one will be hoping it will fare somewhat better.
The two films that Travis Knight has directed before were both scored by Dario Marianelli (and scored very well, too) but he’s had a change of musical direction this time and Daniel Pemberton always seemed like perfect composer casting for this movie. It differs from Bill Conti’s (fantastic) score to the 1987 one in that Conti’s was very straight-laced orchestral fantasy adventure music – while making use of a big orchestra and choir, Pemberton’s music is very much anchored in the world of rock music (with a bit of 1980s pop influence too). What the two composers’ approaches have in common is that they don’t mock or send-up anything that’s happening in the (clearly fairly ridiculous) movies, but instead take them very seriously.
While that approach wasn’t uncommon with orchestral scores of the 80s for such movies, I think it’s perhaps a little harder to pull off when you’re basing the music on rock and pop. Pemberton has even employed the services of Brian May – yes, the Brian May – to provide the guitar solos, but to be honest you wouldn’t need to see his name anywhere in the credits to recognise him, such is the distinctiveness of that sound.
The score as a whole is just perfectly summed up by its main theme, “Eternia”, which comes off as a kind of instrumental blend of Queen and Abba. It’s an extraordinarily catchy tune, with a great B-section as well, quite possibly the biggest earworm the composer has ever written. The two main melodies which make it up both feature as building blocks for almost the entire score in all sorts of different guises, from the almost medieval feel of the intimate “Young Adam” through to the epic action music of tracks like “Portal to Earth” and “Fight for Snake Mountain”. It’s just magnificent.
Other highlights include a villain theme for Skeletor which is appropriately dark and menacing and often plays in conflict with the He-Man theme(s); a great lightly comic piece of caper music in “Comic Store Heist”; I love the hint at May’s own famous “We Will Rock You” percussion in “Young Adam”; there are a couple of nods towards the old animated series’ main theme within the score but a wonderful, great big treatment of it for the score’s finale “A Job for He-Man”; and Pemberton also co-wrote the film’s original song with The Darkness (who perform it), “Masters of the Universe”, which is everything you might want it to be.
Gloriously cheesy yet somehow coming across as entirely sincere, this is such an entertaining score from a composer having something of a banner year, having received such acclaim not long ago for Project Hail Mary (an entirely different beast). It’s just rollicking good fun and the lengthy album is a complete blast from start to finish. It’s mostly big and bold and as colourful as the album cover would imply, it’s as camp as Christmas, it does balance all the big music with occasional interludes of more tender material – there’s nothing not to like!
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