Reviews

Game of Thrones – Arya Stark (McFarlane)

After enjoying Jon Snow and The Night King, I decided to keep up on the Game of Thrones line with Arya Stark. For what it’s worth, I probably won’t pick up Daenerys, the likeness is just too off in the face and she is overall too large. Maybe if I found her for cheap but at the moment, I don’t plan on it. I am looking forward to potential future waves of these figures, despite the disappointing series finale.

There isn’t really anything to add about the line in regards to Arya that hasn’t been said already about the previous two figures I’ve talked about. She shares most of the same high and low points. The detailing is really nice on her sculp and accessories, though, her likeness is a bit off on the head sculpt. Jon, Arya, and Dany all have this weird slightly squished look going on and the noses all seem a little too large. John fares the best, Arya is ok, but it really shows on Dany, which is why I am skipping her.

Arya does have a few issues not as present with Jon though. Her skirt isn’t as forgiving as Jon’s long coat, so her hip articulation is pretty useless. This also means all of her leg articulation is pretty useless. I may run some slits up the sides or something on mine just to let her legs have some freedom. Jon Snow’s outfit has opening and some layering going on so it allowed motion. The Night King also had slits up the sides of his skirt piece by design.

Arya also has nowhere to store her weapons. None of the figures do, actually. Some scabbards would have been nice on Arya and Jon. Jon sort of got away with this because his dagger could be slipped under his belt. the Night King barely uses his weapons in the show and seems to just pass them off to lackeys when he isn’t using them so he didn’t really need anything. Arya doesn’t get the luxury of a belt or any sort of scabbard or a zombie follower to carry her sword, so she has no way to just stand in a neutral pose while still armed.

If you are a fan of this show but not really super into the figures, Arya isn’t awful but she would be an easy pass in favor of Jon or the excellent Night King. Like I said, I am still looking forward to more from this line, but I worry the much hated finale will kill any chance of more being made.

Overwatch Ultimates – Lucio

May 29th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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Today’s figure is Lucio from the Overwatch Ultimates line by Hasbro. I feel like Lucio could make a pretty cool Figma, but there are a lot of other factors that make me feel like Figma will never get around to doing Lucio. Of all the figures shown off prior to the line’s release, Lucio was the one I was the most worried about. Ana had her obvious flaws in the promo photos, so she is expected to be a little disappointing. Lucio basically had one photo going around, where he was standing stiff upright with his little effect parts attached.

Basically, I was really worried Lucio would be a complete brick. Fortunately, he is quite the opposite. His upper body is loaded with joints, including some neat butterfly joints in his shoulders, similar to ones often seen on Spider-Man figures in Marvel Legends, except hidden inside his vest. Even his ponytail is articulated, which is a nice bonus. His Sonic Amplifier has a little cord that attaches to his arm which also holds on pretty well without really hindering articulation.

The lower half is… mostly alright. The hips have a pretty wide range of motion, the ankles have a LOT more than expected. The real problem, and only real problem with this figure, is the knees. The knees have barely any range of motion, somewhat because of the bulk of his legs hindering things, though it also just seems to be limited. I posted a photo demonstrating the entire range of motion, but basically it’s like 20 degrees of bend.

This does kind of really suck for posing him in any dynamic jumping poses. He also can’t make a proper Sound Barrier pose since he can’t completely bend any knees.

The knees issue doesn’t completely ruin the figure, it’s just really disappointing. You can sort of fake some more dynamic range with his ankles and hips, but it’s not quite the same.

Aside from the Sonic Amplifier, Lucio has 2 extra hands (4 total). Oddly, 3 of the four hands are for his left hand while he only has one hand for his right hand. There is a hand to let him hold the Sonic Amplifier on the left but there isn’t anywhere to plug the little cord in on the right. He also has a couple of green swooshy effect parts to look like his speed boost skating. The effects are pretty good aside from the rubbery plastic on mine was bent and distorted out of the package. I could probably boil and reshape them if I wanted to.

All in all, Lucio is pretty satisfying. he could use better knee articulation but otherwise he’s a nice figure. He has a lot of dynamic style going for him too which makes him generally fun to mess with.

Overwatch Ultimates – Reinhardt

May 15th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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While I really prefer the Figma Overwatch figures to the Hasbro Ultimates versions, I have very little hope that Figma will every put out any of the larger Tank heroes. This is the one place where Hasbro definitely has the advantage. A standard sized Figma is anywhere from $50-$70+, a Figma the size of any of the tanks would easily run $150-$200, versus Hasbro’s $50. The first of the larger figures put out by Hasbro is Reinhardt, in his standard look. I believe Reinhardt has a slightly more limited release versus the single packed figures. I imagine part of this is his price and his size.

I was a little worried about the idea of this figure. There are a lot of elements here that could easily go wrong. He has slightly swirly” plastic, he is bulky which could hinder articulation, he could feel too large or too small, that sort of thing. The articulation was the biggest worry. Larger figures tend to have issues with articulation, especially from Hasbro, and armored figures in general tend to be super limited by armor bits. Reinhardt, fortunately, manages to avoid this problem for the most part. He isn’t “Spider-Man” articulated, but he is pretty pose-able. The bulk gets in the way of everything way less than expected.

He also scales very well next to both the other Hasbro figures and the Figmas. He has a lot of nice heft to him and feels solid all around. There are also a lot fo nice details on every part of him, I particularly like his hammer. The hammer works well, he can carry it in one or two hands and pose to look like he is swinging it.

He also has a shield accessory part. The lion crest on his arm pops off and the shield can be placed between the arm and crest. It has a couple of pieces that let it stand on the ground independently but Rein can also carry it around. The shield is pretty neat, but I have a few complaints with it. It feels a little too opaque. Part of this is the plastic needed to make it durable I’m sure, since transparent plastic tends to be much more brittle. A second complaint. The lion crest tends to fall off his arm. The armor sculpt gets int he way of fitting it on snugly, so it just, doesn’t fit very securely without the shield.

My other nitpick with this figure, especially for the price, he really should have come with a swap-able helmet free Reinhardt head. You could argue they might do this in a future release, for a different skin. You could argue that in game Rein always has his helmet on with this skin. I would argue that Hasbro will be very lucky if the line lasts long enough to release all 6 tanks (Rein, Orisa, Roadhouse, D.Va, Winston and Hammond), much less alternate skins of the tanks. Even if they did release another Rein with an unmasked head, I doubt a lot of people would want or need a second huge Rein figure and they certainly aren’t going to drop $50 just for the head. Basically, I doubt there is ever a chance to put out an unhelmeted Rein head, and not getting one now kind of sucks as a result.

Other than the head thing, he really is a good figure. I do feel like the $50 price tag feels a bit too high. He doesn’t really feel like 2x a single packed, smaller figure. He comes in a huge box, but a lot of the huge box exists to accommodate his huge shield. I would say he is still worth picking up for Reinhardt fans and anyone wanting a tank to go with all the smaller figures.

Game of Thrones – The Night King (McFarlane)

May 14th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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After being satisfied with Jon Snow, I decided I’d add another figure to my little Game of Thrones collection with the Night King. Mostly because Dany and Arya weren’t available, but having a villain, however lame his ending ended up being, is always fun.

The Night King continues the bar set by Jon Snow, he has a lot of nice detailing going on across his armor and in this case his face. Being a White Walker, which is essentially zombie, his skin is a bit decayed and creepy looking. This is also where his blue coloring comes from. He is a lot more clean looking than your average zombie however, but I guess that’s part of what makes him the leader of the undead army.

The articulation is pretty nice as well, the long coat is designed in a way that it doesn’t really hinder his leg movement much, which is a nice plus. Rubber skirts on figures tends to completely kill any hip articulation, which makes everything else below that useless as well.

He also includes two weapons. One is a sort of Ice Sword, though it has a long handle and is curved making it more of a sharpened Ice club really. He also has his “iconic” Ice Spear, that he used to down Viserion. He can mostly make the throwing pose but he only has “grippy hands” so he can’t pose with a fingers out “javelin pose” like he does in the show. Not a huge loss, but kind of annoying. The weapons look nice, though they also feel a little fragile.

The Night King is pretty nice on display. He can pose pretty well, though the character in the show never really did a lot of cool poses aside from stand around looking menacing before dying.

Review – Movie – Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (2019)

May 11th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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Pokemon ventures into the live action realm that’s popular lately with Detective Pikachu. It’s loosely based on the 3DS title of the same name, though there are quite a few changes to the plot and characters. The film follows Tim Goodman who teams up with a talking Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds as a wisecracking PG Deadpool. They set out to solve the mystery of Tim’s father’s death but end up unraveling a larger conspiracy.

The general plot is pretty straight forward and predictable. There are very few real twists and none of them feel particularly shocking, even probably the biggest one that happens at the end. The trip though is pretty fun. There are quite a few funny jokes and moments, the Mr. Mime Sequence shown in the trailers is pretty great, and pretty dark in it’s humor, for example. There is a lot of “Loony Tunes” style humor, that is, jokes that are funny for kids and adults but for different reasons.

It’s visually well done. The live action Pokemon all are very recognizable, and look pretty good in their “flesh and blood” style. The little Easter egg moments and little bits of Pokemon doing things in the background that really make the world feel alive. The city where this movie is set is, by way of the plot, special. Special because it’s dedicated to helping Pokemon and people live together in harmony, so there isn’t any battling or people throwing Pokeballs around. Everyone has a “buddy” Pokemon and they all work together to do their jobs.

Pretty much all of the flaws land in the 3rd act, when the villain is revealed, and his motives are a little dodgy, which makes the whole thing feel kind of odd. It’s executed well, it just could have been better. It’s also not particularly groundbreaking in any meaningful way. It’s essentially Rodger Rabbit with Pokemon.

It’s a good movie, it’s not an amazing movie. It does a good job at what it sets out to be.

Additional Spoiler Thoughts Beyond Beyond This Point

In tradition of how I tend to do reviews, I’m going to add a few additional thoughts that contain spoilers below. Read at your own risk.

So, like I said, it’s a lot of “predictable” so most of this will be about the endgame bits of the movie. So, the main villain Twist. This was probably the one real surprising twist, though it’s been done before so it wasn’t really shocking. Also, he’s not a huge actor, but you don’t pick up Bill Nighy to waste him on a throw away character in a wheelchair. That said, why the hell did he want to merge everyone with their Pokemon, aside from being “crazy evil guy”? I get why he wanted to do himself, but forcing it on everyone felt a little random and out there.

Not to mention it felt underused in it’s execution. Basically, all the humans vanished and the Pokemon all just sort of stood around doing nothing. This would have been a prime opportunity to do a few gags about the Human/Pokemon not knowing how to act or what to do. Especially say, Yoshida and Lucy, whom we have watched throughout the movie and can relate to.

This plot point also made the second twist of Tim’s father being Pikachu extremely predictable as well. Actually using Ryan Reynolds was a nice touch. It kind of sucks that they can’t really make a sequel with Ryan Reynolds Pikachu though, not without retreading the same plot ground.

A few other thoughts, the Torterra scene felt really pointless. The Greninja could have injured Pikachu and moved the plot ahead in the same way. I mean it was kind of neat seeing the massive Pokemons, but they basically just stood up and laid back down into the scenery. I guess the writers decided they needed an action sequence for the film.

Speaking of the action sequences, the other two Action scenes were both pretty good. Pikachu vs Charizard was cool, though Pikachu didn’t really DO anything. the final Mewtwo vs Pikachi was good but the whole Evil Ditto bit was what really made that scene. Plus it was a nice way to push the twist with the Father instead of the Son being the villain. Since the Son actually did something useful in the fight.