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Gentle Giant Movie Hellboy and Anung-un-Rama

   

"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."

To continue this overall Hellboy theme, I have another retro guest review looking at Gentle Giant's take on the movie Hellboy - take it away, Mark!

I have to admit at being a big Hellboy fan, from Mike Mignola’s ‘seed of distruction’ right up to the animated series, I’ve been with ol’ red that long, even my little daughter is fond of him!

With the up n’ coming Hellboy II ‘The golden army’, Mezco are about to release the second (if you don’t count 1.5) series of Hellboy movie figures, previously we have had the excellent comic book series 1 and 2, plenty of exclusives, and now the animated series, featuring Hellboy, Abe Sapien, and Gentle Giants take on a movie figure, (and an Anug-un-Rama variant) which is why I turned up today...
 






Packaging: ***
The packaging is a usual clamshell, pictures of the other figures on the back, no real info to speak of, it does the job and holds Hellboy in quite well, evil twist-ties come back to haunt me, but it’s the red guy we want to see...

Sculpt: Hellboy ***1/2, Anug-Rama ****
Now I own pretty much all the Hellboy figures now, and was VERY impressed with the comic book series the most, but they are all good.

I loved the original Mezco movie line, but I have to say these work better for me. It has been said that they are based on scans of Ron Pearlman, and with the regular Hellboy it shows...

The head from the side looks particularly impressive, there are lots of little details, like the pitted skin texture, the cracked leather of the pants, stitching on the boots etc. Both figures share the same body with no variation, Hellboy’s expression is pretty neutral yet expressive, where as Anug-Rama looks pretty angry, with gritted teeth and a mean expression.

The faces are slightly thinner than they should be, and the bodies seem slightly slight, but on watching the film again, they seem pretty balanced, as the Mezco ones seemed slightly stocky...

The holster could have been in softer rubber like the Mezco ones, its pretty hard plastic, you can work with it to get the gun in, but its pretty brittle. Also it looks like Gentle Giant moulded the holster the wrong way round, but you can reverse the gun in the holster.

Scale is a bit odd as I can’t find another line he fits into, he’s around 6/half scale, so too big for Marvel Legends, too small for other Hellboy lines...

Paint: ***
Well I can’t fault the paint, there is a very slight wash to bring out the details in the face and body, as is the same with the belt. The boots have a muddy appearance, and everything is clean and sharp.

The only problems I have is both figures have a red line at the back of the head, like something was calibrated wrong and missed it, not a big deal though. And the eyes on regular Hellboy look a little cross eyed, again this is very slight and won’t put you off at all.

The red body of both figure is moulded in red plastic, and black for the pants and boots, so no paint rubbing or scratching here.

Articulation - ****
Now we all like that Marvel Legends style of articulation, and both of these guys don’t disappoint...

As Michael has pointed out quite a few times, and I agree, good, expressive head articulation is all important, and Hellboy got just that. It’s on a proper ball joint, so can be tilted anyway you want...

Ball jointed shoulders, cut upper biceps, double-jointed elbows, twist and swivel left hand, and ball-socket right hand of doom, forward/backward swivel mid-torso and twist waist. That covers his upper body, all joints are tight yet movable, and have a good range of motion with no restrictions.

Legs are the same with ball-socket hips, twist at the top of the legs, double-jointed knees, swivel lower legs, jointed ankles with a rocker for left-right motion and jointed toes. Again all these joints work really well, the ankles are restricted by the sculpt of the pants, but again no problem. Also the right leg is ‘slightly’ restricted by the holster, my Anung-Rama broke off.!...

The tail is another great example of good articulation with a ball-socket style joint at the base of the tail, and 3 swivel joints finishing at the tip, now I must admit I would have preferred a soft, flexible tail, with a bendy wire, but this does fine...

(One thing to note that on both figures the tail popped out very easily, but a very minor mod stopped this)...

Accessories: **
I can think of lots of stuff that could have gone with these guys, like a coat etc.

What you get is an extra open right hand of doom, an extra left fist hand, and his Samaritan gun...

The Samaritan is pretty basic, but does the job and fits nicely into his left hand, the extra hands pop on and off really well.

Fun Factor - ***1/2
Well it’s a well sculpted, highly articulated Hellboy, what more do you want ; )

He looks good to display and has enough joints to make him a good general toy as well...

Value: ***
I picked him up from EBay, around £10, that’s what you pay here for this sort of thing. He sells for the same price as the other animated figures, and he’s worth it...

Anung-un-Rama was sent to me by mistake after I ordered a regular Hellboy, so I really can’t comment on his price...

Things to Watch Out For - 
Brittle holster and the tail pop’s off quite easily, but other than that both figures are perfect.

Overall: ***1/2
I have to say that these are my favourite Hellboy figures.!, Everything is right about them to love them, I really like the old Mezco movie line, but these guys do it better for me, I haven’t herd of Gentle Giant producing other figures from the film (love an Abe.!), as that’s seems to be up to Mezco.
There have been lots of frustration with Hellboy figure’s, Mezco dropping the comic book line, the lack of his trademark coat on a lot of the figures, and some more (albeit less action-orientated) characters being omitted, professor broom anyone...

But I do like this one, and hope Gentle Giant keep producing figure of this quality in the future...

Score Recap:
Packaging- ***
Sculpt- Hellboy ***1/2, Anug-Rama ****
Paint- ***
Articulation- ****
Accessories- **
Fun Factor - ***1/2
Value- ***
Overall- ***1/2

Where to Buy -
Finding these in stock at a store might be tough now, but you can use the sponsor MyAuctionLinks.com to search as well.


Figure from the collection of Mark Hiblen

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