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Captain Jack Sparrow
Disney Exclusive
"The
following is a guest review. The review
and photos do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Michael Crawford
or Michael's Review of the Week, and are the opinion and work of the
guest author."
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Debbie Valenta checks in with a
look at one of the new Pirates figures available at the Disney stores.
Tell us all about it, Deb!
After Disneyland came out with two subpar Indiana Jones figures, I was
curious to see if they’d put more care and effort into a figure of one
of their own iconic characters. Turns out the answer is yes,
but barely. It’s the inconsistent quality of the figure and
it’s accessories that make it hard to get excited about this particular
Captain Jack Sparrow. The figure’s release coincides with
that of the newest film and while his costume is circa Pirates 4, the
accessories could be from any of the films.
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Packaging
- **
As with the Indiana Jones figures, the packaging is monstrous and not
at all collector friendly. The package was decimated to get
at the figure and while the art on the massive card is passable, it’s
pretty bland and I can’t see an adult collector being motivated to buy
a second Jack to keep in the package.
Sculpting - ***
The sculpting, from what I can tell through the thick application of
paint (more on that later), is pretty good. From his dreads,
to his coat, to his boots and scabbard buckle, the texture is nice and
they manage to affect a nice “flow” in representing the
fabric. I’m even going to give them the benefit of the doubt
and say that while the face is a bit long, it ‘s not an awful
representation of Depp, just not all that great either. The
hands are nicely done and can hold almost all the accessories with
ease. The only thing I had any difficulty with, was the
pistol and even that I got into his hand with some coaxing.
The only thing that’s really careless is that the two ends of the
jacket on either side of the hip swivel don’t line up at all on the one
side.
Paint
- **
The greatest weakness of this figure is the paint. It’s
inconsistent throughout. On the one hand, the painting is
very clean and they do a nice job of aging up his boots and
hat. Especially impressive is the work on Sparrow’s trademark
hair beading and the buttons and buckles of his outfit and his many
rings and bracelets. On the other hand, the buttons on the
back of the jacket are completely ignored by the painter and for some
reason, his white and red-striped sash looks like the paint was
troweled on and what should be fine, red stripes are far too thick and
pink.
The base that comes with the figure—what I assume is supposed to be the
sea wall of the port, is given a lovely impression of texture by a
spray of black paint---but the cannonball embedded in the stone is left
completely untouched and is the base color of the stone, not
black. I suppose it would be easy enough to fix yourself, but
really, why should you have to??
The worst offense however, is Sparrow’s face. The skin tone
is way off—so far off that he looks like he’s in blackface and when you
have Depp’s own visage emblazoned on the packaging, you’d better get it
right! In addition to the mystifiying choice of paint color,
it’s also far too thick here, obscuring what I suspect is actually a
decent portrayal of Johnny Depp. Lastly, the eyes—the irises
are painted a very off-putting color of yellow that at best make him
look jaundiced and at worst, make him look like a stoned zombie.
Articulation
- ***
This Captain Jack Sparrow is nicely poseable and stands quite well,
either on the base OR on his own. With cut wrists, ball
joints for the shoulders and hips, elbows and keens that bend, and a
hip swivel, there really aren’t too many scenarios you can’t put your
Jack into. The head is limited to side to side motions and
the leg movement might be impeded by the rubbery longcoat but it still
works. No ankle joint here but with his big sea
boots I didn’t really expect it.
Accessories
- ***
A fun number of accessories comes with Jack, especially if you consider
the base an accessory. First, there is his worn tricorn hat
that fits his head very well. I actually thought it was a
sculpted part of the figure before I opened him up. He
includes everything you’d need for a worthy pirate captain including a
sabre, tankard, ring of keys, pistol and his trusty compass.
Each fits into his hand well, except perhaps the pistol, which took
some maneuvering to get it to stay in his hand. The compass I
was especially pleased with, has it’s actually made of two pieces and
although very small, can be kept closed or opened up for navigating the
high seas. The base comes in three pieces which fit together
well, plus an additional dockline attached to a ring that can be fitted
into the wall. As mentioned previously, these are all
accessories that aren’t specific to any one film and it would have been
nice to include something from “Pirates of the Caribbean: On
Stranger Tides.” Ponce de Leon’s pair of goblets would have
been an obvious choice.
Fun
Factor - ***
With his poseability and fun pirate gear, Jack is bound to provide
hours of play at the beach for kids and the adult collector could have
quite a bit of enjoyment themselves trying to emulate some of Depp’s
more iconic poses.
Value
- ***1/2
Despite it’s issues, $14.95 isn’t bad at all and since you can buy the
figure at World of Disney
outside the Park, you don’t need to shell out for a park ticket just to
pick him up--but I can’t see too many collectors picking these up in
multiples of two.
Things
to Watch Out For -
Not much—the compass is
small and came apart when removing it from the packaging but the cover
snapped back on easily enough.
Overall
- **1/2
A fun, minor piece to sit on your desk in your cubicle at work but not
something you’re going to want to proudly place in the front of your
display case. A bit more care taken with the painting and
better portrayal of Depp and that could have been a different case.
KEEP SCROLLING DOWN FOR MORE
PHOTOS!
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This product was purchased for the review by the reviewer.
Photos and text by Debbie Valenta.
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