BY THE POWER OF NUMBSKULL ...

As an impressionable 5-year old in the 1980's, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe played a huge part in my fledgling childhood. I had all the toys, playsets, action figures, spent many a summer's day running around the garden with my plastic sword in the air loudly proclaiming: "I HAVE THE POWER", and watched the original cartoon show with almost religious zeal every Saturday morning. 

It was the first franchise I was ever a fan of, and long before Doctor Who became my 'thing'. HE may have been fiction, but He-Man was the first hero and male role model I had other than my dad and Grandad.

Fast forward 35 years later, and Kevin Smith's 'soft reboot' Masters of the Universe: Revelation clearly doesn't have the power with audiences. The Netflix "sequel" to the original He-Man series (starring Teela, and side-lining nearly all the original male characters such as Man-At-Arms, Orko, King Randor and even Skeletor himself) is getting some pretty abysmal audiences scores. 

One watches "Masters of the Universe: Revelation" with the same sort of trepidation one might feel stepping into a time machine piloted by a tipsy buffoon. Nostalgia, that cruel mistress, had promised us a return to the glory days of He-Man and Skeletor, but what we got was more akin to a reunion where everyone's had too much to drink.

The animation, I must say, is slicker than a politician's promise, with colours so vivid they threaten to leap off the screen and slap you in the face. Yet, beneath this vibrant veneer lies a narrative that seems to have lost its way in the labyrinth of modern storytelling. The plot, if one can call it that, lumbers along like a beast of burden, weighed down by the chains of what it thinks is clever subversion but comes across as a muddled attempt to reinvent the wheel.

The characters, once the epitome of simplicity in heroism and villainy, have been thrust into a blender of complexity. He-Man, formerly the embodiment of straightforward muscle-bound morality, now broods more than he battles. Skeletor, that charmingly malevolent skull-faced schemer, seems lost in a fog of existential angst, which, while amusing, dilutes the pure, unadulterated evil we all loved to hate.

The voice acting, one might argue, provides a saving grace. Mark Hamill's Skeletor is a delight, his voice dripping with the glee of a child who's just discovered the art of mischief. Yet, even this cannot fully compensate for the script's meandering journey into the depths of self-seriousness.

"Masters of the Universe: Revelation" attempts to grapple with grand themes but ends up wrestling with its own shadow. It's a series that feels like it's trying to justify its existence in a world that moved on from Eternia's simplistic conflicts. The result is a spectacle that, while visually arresting, leaves one longing for the days when the battle between good and evil was as clear as the line between day and night.

In conclusion, this "Revelation" serves more as a revelation of how not to handle a beloved franchise. It's like watching someone try to reassemble a beloved toy from memory, only to end up with something that looks vaguely like what it once was, but with all the charm and simplicity stripped away. One can only hope that future iterations remember the joy of the original, rather than trying to outthink it.

FOOTBALL'S LEAVING HOME ...

Ah, the beautiful game – or so they call it. But let's be honest, for many of us, football has become less of a sport and more of a nostalgic relic, like a sepia-toned photograph of a time when we could still remember what the offside rule was, or cared enough to try.

We once stood in the terraces, the wind whipping through our scarves, our voices hoarse from chanting the names of players who, let's face it, were more likely to be found in the local pub than on the pitch these days. But now, we're more likely to be found on our sofas, the closest we get to a stadium is the roar of the crowd from our television speakers, and our most strenuous activity on match day is lifting a remote control.

The glory days of football, when it was all about the mud and the sweat and the sheer poetry of a well-timed slide tackle, have given way to an era where the game is as much about the business as it is about the ball. Clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City, once the heartbeats of their local communities, now seem more like franchises in a global football empire, managed not by men in flat caps but by suits with spreadsheets. 

Frank Lampard, a name once synonymous with Chelsea's midfield, decided he'd had enough of the managerial merry-go-round. He sent the Russians on his own list to the grocery store, only to find that even the items there were not quite first-class. It's a fitting metaphor if ever there was one: in the supermarket of football, even your past heroes can't guarantee you get the best ingredients.

The game has evolved, or devolved, depending on one's perspective. It's become a spectacle where the transfer fee is discussed with more reverence than the player's actual talent. We're bombarded with stats and analytics, as if the passion of the game could be quantified in a pie chart. Remember when football was about the unexpected, the unscripted magic of a last-minute goal? Now, it feels like we're watching a pre-recorded episode where even the surprises are well-rehearsed.

And don't get me started on the fans. Once, we were the twelfth man, a force of nature, swaying with each goal and heartbreak. Now, we're consumers, buying into the latest kit release, the new app, or the next big transfer. The chant has been replaced by a click, the roar by a retweet.

So here we sit, in our armchairs, watching games that seem to stretch on for an eternity, interrupted by ads for betting firms and energy drinks. Football has indeed passed us by, leaving us in its wake with our memories of a game that once felt like ours. But perhaps, in our heart of hearts, we're grateful – it's much warmer here, and the beer's cheaper too. 

Here's to football, the sport that's moved on without us, leaving us with the comforting delusion that we preferred it when it was simpler, when it was ours. Cheers to that, I suppose, as we watch from a distance, our love for the game now more akin to a fond remembrance rather than a living, breathing passion.