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Packaging - ***
The box isn't quite as fancy schmancy as what we're seeing these days
from other high end sixth scale companies, but it has the critical
elements.
It's
collector friendly, which I consider a must have for this particular
market. You can easily pop Boris out of his plastic coffin, show him
off on the shelf, and pop him back in without any damage to the
packaging whatsoever. There's also a decided lack of twisties, which is
a big plus since they would wrinkle his suit.
The box photos are
not of the toy, but the man himself, another plus in my book. If I want
to see the figure, I just open the cover, and there's a nice write up
on the interior fifth panel as well. It's always a brave company that
uses actual actor or character photos on their packaging, allowing you
to compare the product to reality quite easily.
Sculpting - ***1/2
This final sculpt score is really an average of the sculpts of all
three included heads - young, middle age, and old. For comparison,
here's a still of Boris as a young
man, middle
aged dude, and old
duffer.
Mine
came wearing the oldest portrait, with the other two packed in the
tray. I'm assuming that will be true across the board, but I can't
guarantee it.
In person, the old portrait is
my favorite. He
looks to me like he did back in the 60's, very reminiscent of when he
hosted the television show Boris
Karloff's Thriller. On close examination, there's a few
issues you could call out. He clearly has more (and poofier) hair than
he did at this
time of his life, and his jowls aren't quite as pronounced in
the sculpt as they should be. But this
is the way I best remember him outside of the make up, and
they've done an excellent overall job of capturing his look.
The
youngest portrait is the one hardest for me to judge. For example, I
don't remember him ever wearing the thin Valentino type mustache, but
upon reviewing stills
of him
as a young actor, I found that it was not an uncommon look for him. The
hair line isn't quite right, a problem in fact with all three sculpts.
He had a very distinct pointed appearance to the front of his hair
throughout his life, and all three head sculpts here have a very
straight, even hairline.
The middle aged version is the
one I
expect most folks will display him with. It captures the most common
movie appearance, at least when he wasn't wearing heavy makeup or
prosthetics. Just like the other two, the hairline is off, but the
shape and size of the nose, the line of the jaw, the placement of the
eyes and eyebrows - all other aspects match the man extremely well.
I'm
going to be looking for a mad doctor's outfit (maybe I'll pick up an
extra Frederick figure from Young Frankenstein...) to put on him, and
place him behind the table you see in the first photo, with a
Frankenstein monster laying on it. No, not movie scene accurate, but a
cool combination I think.
The
figure standa about 12 1/4" or so, just a hair under the old Sideshow
size, so he should fit in pretty well with their Universal Monster line.
Paint - ***
The paint work on all three heads is technically sound, with no slop,
over spray or weird inconsistencies.
The
eyes are always critical, and here they are clean and straight. There's
also no 'doll dots' or catch lights painted in that I could make out
(if they are there, they are very tiny), but rather the reflections you
see in certain photos are actual reflections off the gloss finish on
the eyeball.
The eyes all have liner, but
it's more noticeable in
photos than in person. It also matches the appearance that actors had
in the old black and white movies and stills of that era, as eye makeup
was often used.
These aren't at the level of a
Hot Toys or
Enterbay production paint job yet, but they certainly rival the work
done by other companies in this same $70 or so price range.
Articulation - ***1/2
Amoktime has made a big, big, big improvement in this category. Gone
are the out of date bodies we saw with their past releases!
They've moved up not just one or
two rungs on the ladder, but just about all the way to the top,
incorporating the new ATOM
body that Go
Hero
uses. This body (minus the sound feature that is also available with Go
Hero) is used for figures like Buck Rodgers and Sinbad, figures that
cost $100 - $150 and more! The blank body costs $32 from Go Hero all by
its lonesome self, and it's a huge step forward in quality for Amoktime.
The
body isn't quite TrueType quality yet, but it's at the overall top band
of the market, along with similar bodies from Sideshow, Triad, Enterbay
and Medicom. It hangs very naturally, and the range of movement on
several of the joints is extremely impressive. I was particularly
pleased with the shoulders and arms, which could *almost* cross, a pose
that's very, very tough for any sixth scale figure.
The hips were
also quite impressive, with a true ball socket at the thigh, and a post
entering into the pelvis. The leg can turn on the post, and the ball
joint is set out far enough to allow for a tremendously wide range of
movement.
The ankles and wrists are both a
bit of a weak point,
however. The ball at the center of both joints has to be turned to get
various foot and hand positions, and because the ball is small and the
post is fitted tightly into the limb, it can be a bit frustrating to
do. It does allow just about any pose, and the feet can remain flat on
the floor in deep stances, but it's a bit tricky to get it to work.
The
hands themselves are also something that needed to be switched out for
this figure. These are the standard ATOM hands, with a right hand in a
gun grip, and an open posed left hand. These sculpts, especially the
right hand, are a bit limiting, and extra hands would have been a great
accessory.
While the heads swapped easily
enough, you'll want to
take some care. The interior neck post tends to pull out with the head.
You'll need to use some needle nose pliers to pull it free from the
head (carefully!) and pop it back into the neck, then attach the new
head.
A couple joints were a little
loose, but nothing was
floppy, and he held poses well. I could see this body getting a full
four stars with some properly posed hands, and slightly tightened up.
One of the cooler features of
the ATOM is that the arms can be popped off at the shoulders. Make sure
you check their PDF
doc on the body to do it right, but it's a huge help with
removing the clothing. More about that in the Outfit section.
Accessories - **1/2
This
was a tough call, since I really wanted more accessories. But getting
additional portraits is a huge bonus, and for a figure like this who is
an actor, not a character, it makes perfect sense.
But with their
Night of the Living Dead zombie, we got not two but THREE extra heads,
plus extra hands. The lack of extra hands is what ends up hurting this
figure, as they would have made it possible to do some iconic poses. An
extra set of properly posed hands would have bumped this score another
half star, where it should have been.
There's also the usual display
base, but you won't have to use it to keep him standing if you don't
want to.
Outfit - **
It's
not too hard to find a guy wearing a suit in the sixth scale world.
From characters like billionaires Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne,
to
zombies, to villains like Toht, you can find a wide variety of figures
wearing suits, and a wide variety of companies trying their best to
make them. For such a simple garment, it can be one of the most
difficult to reproduce in this scale.
It's probably not good that the
last 1/6th suit I saw was Toht's.
While this Sideshow Indiana Jones figure had other issues, the
tailoring, fit and quality of his suit was not one of them.
The
suit on Boris has some serious tailoring issues, issues that will
be tough to fix completely even with the most diligent futzing.
Let's
start with the good, however, and jump down to his feet. The shoes are
excellent sculpts, with very realistic soles that even
have the
old time metal 'tap-like' wear inhibitors sculpted on the bottom! The
shoes themselves are sculpted, but the laces are the real deal, adding
additional realism to the look. I did find myself retying the laces
every few minutes, but once you get them right and pose him on the
shelf, they'll look great.
It's also worth pointing out
that
these are actual separate shoes, worn on his feet, that can be removed.
I opted not to when I posed him nekkid only because of the effort
required to remove them, and the fact that the pants would fit over
them so it wasn't necessary.
The pants are also quite nice,
with
a good cut and fit. The ride a bit high on his chest, but you won't see
it in most situations since the vest covers it up. There's no belt
though, even though the pants have belt loops.
All the problems
come in from the waist up. The underlying shirt has snaps at
the
sleeves, but real buttons down the front. While that allows the shirt
to lay pretty flat on his chest, they can be tough to undo and
re-button. When I received the figure I didn't know for sure that the
body underneath was the
ATOM, so I couldn't risk popping off the arms to take the shirt off.
But now you do know, so I highly recommend removing the arms and head,
and just slipping the shirt off, leaving the buttons on the front
closed.
The shirt collar is too large, a
common problem in this
scale. It also rides up too far on his neck, and this is a problem that
can be fixed by having a strap at the bottom that loops through his
crotch. If you pull the front and back of the shirt downward tightly,
you'll notice that it vastly improves the look of the collar. A strap
running front to back through his legs would have accomplished this,
and would have made the shirt look and fit much better.
Over the
shirt is the vest, held closed with three snaps. The material is very
high quality, but the top of the vest, around the first button, is too
loose.
The tailoring allows it to pooch out too far, puffing up the outfit
right where it's most obvious.
Adding to the general disarray
around the neck and chest is the tie. The tie itself isn't bad, and is
actually scaled pretty well for the figure. It's much better than the
more common oversized knot that we tend to see. But with the huge shirt
collar and puffed out vest, it looks too small and tight.
On top
of all this is the suit coat. The coat collar is a bit large as well,
but it's not as problematic as the shirt collar. The material is top
quality as is the stitching, and I think that if the vest and shirt
issues were corrected, you could futz the jacket into looking pretty
good.
I'm going to be swapping this
outfit for something more
appropriate, like the aforementioned mad scientist apron. You can also
always dump the vest, swap in one of the Hot Toys white shirts,
and perhaps get a better look out of just the pants, tie and jacket.
Fun Factor - **
It's a dude in a suit, never a favorite with kids. Few of them will
know the man, even if they do know the monsters. If you have a little
one looking to be an accountant, or maybe you'd like your daughter's
Barbie to have a Sugar Daddy to role play future gold digger potential,
than this is your toy!
Value - **
Even with two extra heads and the improved body, this is not a $70
figure. I was actually going to drop it another half star, but it is
important to keep in mind that the runs on these are very limited, with
only 500 being produced of most of the Amoktime/Executive Replica
figures. That's going to add quite a bit to the cost of course, but
there's still an expectation that the quality of the outfit be much
higher at this kind of price point.
Things to Watch Out For -
If you plan on undressing him, remember that you can pop
the arms off the body. It's a huge help in removing the shirt
without messing with the real buttons.
Overall - ***
I waffled around a lot on this final score. The sculpts are very good,
with solid paint work, and the importance of the upgrade to the body
can't be stressed enough.
But
the outfit just isn't doing it, and it's the one area where they really
needed something of a higher quality. It's bad enough that I was going
to dock them another half star here in the Overall.
In the end
though, the issues with the shirt and vest weren't enough for me to
drop the figure any further. Certainly, some amount of my own personal
sentimentality for both the actor and his films factors in, but the
quality of the head sculpts and the use of the much higher quality body
are extremely good signs of what is to come from Amoktime.
Score Recap:
Packaging - ***
Sculpting - ***1/2
Paint - ***
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - **1/2
Outfit - **
Fun Factor - **
Value - **
Overall - ***
Where to Buy -
You can get him from Amoktime through their Amazon
webstore for $70.
You can also always try
ebay looking for a deal.
Related
Links -
Let's talk both about Amoktime,
and about the man himself. First, other figures by Amoktime
include:
- I was a Teenage Werewolf, I was a
Teenage Frankenstein, Gort
and Klaatu, Invasion
of the Saucer Men, Rondo
Hatton and the NOTLD
Zombie are all sixth scale horror figures. There's also Bub and Dr. Tongue, six inch
zombie action figures they've released.
- if you're a Boris fan, you
should check out Sideshow's Premium
Format Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein Frankie and his bride,
and their regular original
Frankenstein.
- in Sideshow's old 8" scale,
there was also a Son of
Frankenstein, as well as a regular Frank.
- let's not forget the Mummy, a
character Sideshow has done up in PF
format, sixth scale,
and Ardeth Bay version.
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