When Daniel Bernard Roumain entered one of the rehearsal halls at the University of Houston's Moores School of Music, he had a plan to shake up the expectations of the myriad of students that comprise the Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band.
Roumain, known in music circles as DBR, is a Haitian-American composer/violinist currently in a multi-year residence at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at UH. This part of his cross-disciplinary collaboration is en route to stage En Masse Studies in Etudes, a four-hour deconstructed performance of a marching band on parade, directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, set for April 20 at Discovery Green.
Students discovered that music making is much more than notes fixed on the staff — if you allow artistic freedom to reign.
In this first meeting of the musical minds, DBR led a throng of emerging musicians through a melange of exercises designed to break the conventions of a group that otherwise thrives on performing as a tight unit. By interpreting gestures and layering improvisational techniques atop a multi-part score, students discovered that music making is much more than notes fixed on the staff — if you allow artistic freedom to reign.
DBR has a clear vision for the end product, but he's open to letting the process dictate possibilities. Such a strategy allows the students to look at their craft through the looking glass while learning that determining what questions to ask is much more important than the getting the answer right.
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Most children who grew up in the '80s were either a fan of or knew about Masters of the Universe. The property, based on a line of toys from Mattel, spawned a popular-if-short-lived animated TV series, comic books, a comic strip, magazines, and a 1987 live action film starring Dolph Lundgren. It is now the latest IP to get a nostalgic reboot in the form of a new blockbuster film.
Nicholas Galitzine stars as Prince Adam of the planet Eternia, who as a child is exiled to Earth to protect the Sword of Power from invaders led by the evil Skeletor (voiced by Jared Leto). Years later, Adam is now working in the human resources department of a generic company, well-versed in corporate speak but disconnected from his heritage other than a never-ending desire to find the sword he lost when he crash-landed on Earth.
Spoiler alert, he recovers the sword and is soon thereafter rescued from Earth by childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes). Adam’s return to Eternia is less-than-stellar, as the citizens have difficulty believing he’s the long-lost prince, especially because he initially can’t harness the power of the sword. Naturally, he figures it out eventually, leading to a number of face-offs between him and Skeletor’s minions.
Directed by Travis Knight (Bumblebee) and written by a four-person writing team, the film is yet another cynical attempt at exploiting a certain group’s nostalgia without putting any effort into actually making a good movie. The very first scene of the film is a CGI-filled battle between characters that have barely been introduced, much less explained to the audience. For longtime fans, this will be no issue. For everyone else, though, it immediately signals that the filmmakers don’t care about making them care about anyone or anything in the story.
Instead, they substitute actual character development with a campy and self-deprecating vibe that’s in line with the original series. That’s all well and good if the intended audience was solely 50-year-olds, but for a movie that presumably wants to bring in younger audiences, it’s a choice that never fully comes through. Some characters try to be funnier than others, and most of the “jokes” land with a thud since the tone hasn’t been properly established.
Worst of all, there are never any meaningful stakes in the film. Adam is impervious to damage, something that would have been truly funny if commented upon, but instead is just treated as fact for no good reason. Skeletor is not intended to be a fearsome villain, as he often bumbles through scenes or line deliveries, but the lack of a truly terrible enemy keeps the story stuck in neutral. Combined with bloodless PG-13 fight scenes with no sense of realness to them, there is rarely anything about which to get excited.
Galitzine has turned heads as both a gay (Red, White & Royal Blue) and straight (The Idea of You) romantic interest, but he can never find his footing as the leading man here. The film never allows him to develop into a true action hero, so instead he comes across as a pretender most of the time. Mendes is okay, but she, too, isn’t given the opportunity to become much more than a sidekick. Idris Elba is entirely wasted as Teela’s father Duncan. Leto lets loose, which works because he’s the only character without a recognizable face.
There may be a world in which rebooting Masters of the Universe makes sense, but it does not exist when the film that is offered doesn’t even try to appeal to anyone who doesn’t have a deeply ingrained knowledge of the decades-old property. By relying on nostalgia instead of good filmmaking, the film may get good box office returns on opening weekend, but it’s difficult to imagine that it will endure.
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Masters of the Universe opens in theaters on June 5.
