Everyone knows how the battles will turn out. It`s what's between them that raises Masters Of The Universe ever so slightly above the mediocre.

With Masters of the Universe -- the latest numbskull entertainment from the creators of Castle Greyskull -- He-Man makes the transition from animation to live action. Taking a live actor along for the ride might have helped.

A misfiring, underdone epic that takes its inspiration not from life or literature, but from a toy line and the cartoon series it inspired.

Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the Cannon Group head honchos who never found a property they couldn’t cheapen (see: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace), probably weren’t the right guys to oversee this.