Cliffbee.com TFU Grimlock Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Grimlock
Series: Universe
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Velociraptor

Thanks to Griffin for loaning me Grimlock for this review.



VELOCIRAPTOR MODE
Height: 12cm Length: 18cm Width: 7cm

   A milky grey raptor with extensive scarlet paint on his head, legs and back, forming a solid line down his spine but in stripes elsewhere. There's tan plastic as well, on his hips, forelimbs and various other places. He has green eyes and white painted teeth. There's a rather awkward Autobot logo stamped on his head. The colours don't especially remind of G1 Grimlock - if anything they're close to those of BW Dinobot, of whom he is a repaint. The colours don't clash but don't gel all that well either.

   Aside from the kibble on his underside, this isn't a bad raptor, although the feet do get in the way of his lower jaw. He's also sports a random post sticking out of his back for no good reason. It looks like it might be there so he can stow his weapon on his back in robot mode, since there's a similar sized hole on his weapon, but it's not actually the same size. This has plagued the mould since the beginning.

   As with most of the original Beast Wars moulds, Grimlock has a pretty good sculpt. He has wrinkled skin and his forelimbs are webbed. The inside toes of his legs are hooked as velociraptors' were - this was for ripping through flesh. There's a few unpainted spots that really hurt the overall effect, though. As mentioned, the spine is painted scarlet, but just behind his hips is a double hinge that's a mix of grey and tan plastic, and there's a tan panel on the back of his neck that's also unpainted. This is another flaw that ran right through the various incarnations of this mould.

   Poseability is reasonably good. His forelimbs are on ball joints, and while they're restricted to some extent, they move in pretty much any direction you'd expect a bipedal predator's to anyway. His lower jaw opens and shuts, it's painted red inside which is a nice touch. Lastly, the hip are swivels with hinges that swing outwards, the knees bend and the front and rear toes on the feet are hinged.

   While this beast mode has some flaws, the mould works fairly well overall. The colours here are no worse than some of the other versions of the mould, but the colours used seem unfocused - and this really hurts Grimlock on the unpaintable bits on his back. There's really not much here aside him being a bipedal dinosaur that really links this toy to the character concept.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Detach the tail and set aside. Fold the tail's base over onto his back, fold the robot legs out from his belly, rotate them and fold down the feet. Flip out the heelspurs, rotate the side panels 180°. Flip the beast head down over his robot head and onto his chest. Fold the front claws up onto his back, rotate the arms down to his side and fold down the claws on his hands. Open the two halves of his tail, detach the sword inside if you like, arm him. Lastly, you have the option of leaving his mutant head closed or opening it to reveal the robot head. I suggest taking the two halves off, placing them in storage and never retrieving them.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 12.5cm Width: 7cm

   Again largely milky white, Grimlock has a fair spattering of scarlet paint on his chest while his shins are orange. His head is painted brown with a scarlet face and green eyes. The mutant head is a tan colour. The Autobot logo is now well placed in the centre of his chest. There's not a whole lot of G1 Grimlock here either, but the colours work better here than in beast mode.

   As you may guess, I don't think a lot of the mutant head - although it's not like either really evokes G1 Grimlock. If anything, The BW Grimlock toy of the same mould has a better G1 feel about it. The chest is his beast head - the red crest is the front of his chest, and it works well with the brown of his robot head.

   Grimlock has some problems in this mode, perhaps more than most Beast Wars moulds. His shoulders are higher than they should be - on either side of his head. The head itself is kind of surrounded by torso - there's a ridge behind it and the side panels on either side with the shoulders attached. His forearms are formed from the raptor legs, but rotated. They went for the cheap option of putting holes on one side of these limbs, and so his forearms have big holes on the sides, which looks pretty bad, and was easily avoidable. He doesn't have actual hands, rather he has opposable claws, which can wrap around his weapons, so they end up working reasonably well.

   Dinobot exhibits a fair bit of poseability in robot mode. His shoulders are swivels, but have hinges so he can lift his arms to the sides. His elbows are also dual joints, and his opposable claws open and shut. His head is on a ball joint, but it's got a lot of plastic around it so it's effectively a swivel. The hips and knees are also ball joints, and these are far less restricted. Add the hinges on both his feet and heelspurs and you've got a very poseable robot mode.

   The sword sticks into a hole between his claws and follows the line of his arm - he holds it as a stabbing weapon, not a slashing weapon. The other weapon is a spinning blade affair, and the two halves of the tail fold out to form a large blade with a red top surface. What's really cool about this is that pushing the button on the base of this weapon in causes the blade to spin quite rapidly for about 3 seconds. For some reason this version of the mould has a shorter sword than most - so there's a tip missing from the beast mode tail - and the sword is made of a very soft plastic.

   It's a decent robot mode but the colours are only so-so and the he still carries the inherent shortcomings of the mould. The sword isn't as good as on the other versions of the mould, which really dampens my enthusiasm for this repaint.

VARIATIONS

   None that I'm aware of. The mould has been revisited many times - including BW Grimlock & Dinobot amongst others. Hardhead from Beast Wars Neo is a retooling, and Dinotron is a repaint of Hardhead. Thrustol from Beast Wars Second is a major retooling of this mould.

OVERALL

   A decent mould but one that's been used many times, and this version has a badly neutered sword. The colours are done somewhat poorly and the name is applied fairly arbitrarily. Given the relatively scarcity of this uninspiring repaint, it's not one I can recommend at all - 5/10

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