Masterpiece Movie Series MPM-15 Brawl

Given the number of Third Party Masterpiece-analogues I own, I have been fairly slow in getting into the official Movie Masterpiece line, largely because they've become so expensive since Barricade, Jazz and VW Bumblebee. Their size and requirement for shelf space has obviously played a role as well, given the limited space now available in my home but, in several cases, I've divested myself of older toys of a specific character to make space, because the Studio Series versions were better representations of the movie CGI, made to a more appropriate size, with vastly improved engineering and articulation.

Brawl, however, was one that I owned the Leader class toy from the original movie's toyline, and had been sufficiently pleased with it that the Voyager class Studio Series toy was surplus to my requirements. However, when the improved oversized KOs came out, I reconsidered and sold the Leader class toy to make space in my collection for a more accurate replacement (or tried to, at least: the courier lost it en route to its new owner, so I had to refund the buyer and then neither of us had the toy!). It was never an urgent purchase, though, particularly while I was only working intermittently as a freelancer, and the more I looked at the SS mold, and its oversized KOs, the more shortcomings I saw. In the end, it wasn't till last year - having started a new job - that I decided to shell out for the Masterpiece instead... and, even then, I only bought it because it had been discounted by about a third of the original UK RRP.

Given the lacklustre presentation of MPM Bonecrusher, my expectations for this figure were somewhat lower than they could have been for a Masterpiece figure. So, let's find out how this compares to the existing Masterpieces in my collection.

Generations Selects Legacy: Evolution Antagony

Femme-Bot Friday #90

These days, even now I'm back in full-time work, impulse buys of TransFormers toys are few and far between, because my abiding impression is that overall quality has dropped substantially versus toys from a few years ago. Where a new figure is a remake of an earlier Generations toy - especially something like the Kingdom Waspinator mold feeling like a cheap knockoff of the 30th Anniversary toy - I'm even less inclined to pick up the newer version.

However, Legacy Inferno was the first new toy of the Beast Wars character since the 1997 original, which I've never owned, and Antagony was a BotCon 1998 exclusive repaint as a Femme-Bot, which I've also never owned... The new toy appeared to be such a hopeless simplification of the original, losing most of its impressive features, so Inferno was among the majority of Legacy toys that I skipped.

And yet... when I happened upon Generations Selects Legacy: Evolution Antagony - ostensibly a limited edition repaint by Hasbro themselves - at a branch of Game inside a Sports Direct in Eastbourne, that old impulse arose. Could this be another case of buyer's remorse? Let's take a look...

Flame Toys FuRaiModel Kit Arcee

(Femme-Bot Friday #88)

So, after enjoying the Windblade kit, it was a foregone conclusion that I'd want the Arcee kit as well. This model kit seemed to take a while to arrive - first revealed back in 2022, it wasn't available (in the UK, via my usual channels) till late 2023, at which point I snapped her up and, unlike with Windblade, started building her soon after she arrived... and, instead, this draft has been sitting around waiting for me to complete it for more than two years now.

Just like Windblade, Flame Toys' second Femme-Bot kit met with a mixed reception but, Arcee being dearer to the hearts of fans of a certain age, it was perhaps even more vitriolic. It's a strange thing to observe, frankly, that the 'mom/babysitter' character from the 1986 animated movie - who was clearly designed with the male gaze in mind - is somehow not 'allowed' to be sleek and feminine, even though Hasbro's most recent versions of her have been precisely that, just with an entire car shell stuck on her back.

As I've said before, the very idea of non-transforming TransFormers is anathema to me, but it's been apparent for some time that Hasbro themselves - and even Takara Tomy, to a degree - are incapable of designing good Femme-Bot figures, and it's really been up to the Third Parties to innovate. And, while this isn't a Hasbro or Takara Tomy product, it is officially licensed... and, because I really enjoy model kits, they've become an exception... as future Femme-Bot Fridays may continue to demonstrate.

For the moment, though, let's take a look at this new interpretation of Arcee, to see how she compares to other depictions of the character.

Masterpiece Movie Series MPM-14 Bonecrusher

Considering its humbly-priced and thoroughly impressive beginnings, the Masterpiece line has grown to become - in my opinion - one of the most egregiously overpriced lines in the TransFormers franchise. This is particularly notable in the Masterpiece Movie subline where, at first glance, many of the figures appear to be only small upgrades on the quality of Leader Class toys circa Revenge of the Fallen.

Such was my opinion, at least, when MPM-13 Blackout emerged four years after the excellent Studio Series figure looking similarly underpainted and, in some ways, substantially less accurate, while MPM-4 Optimus Prime, which appeared a full eight years after the Leader class RotF toy, was marred by ill-fitting parts that didn't sit flush until the improved knockoffs appeared some time later. Similarly, having bought Studio Series Bonecrusher, I sold off my original Deluxe class toy, and the prospect of what looked like a sorely underpainted 'Masterpiece' enlargement just didn't appeal.

So, why do I have this now? Well, there are two reasons. First and foremost, MPM-15 Brawl appeared, looking like a substantial improvement on the rather cool Leader class toy from 2007, which got lost by the courier when I tried to sell it on a few years ago, and I was keen to get some form of replacement for him (albeit possibly a KO because, however good it is, it ain't worth £165!), since that had been the only version of movie Brawl I'd bought. This was enough to somewhat rekindle my interest in MPM, generally. Secondly... Game started selling Bonecrusher at half price sometime last year, and still had it in stock when, having started a new full-time job toward the end of January, my first full-month's paycheck arrived in my bank account at the end of February.

So, does slashing the price by half make this a worthwhile purchase? Stick with me, gentle reader, and we'll find out.

BingoToys BT-06 Spider Lady

(Femme-Bot Friday #86)

It's a curious thing that, as a long-time arachnophobe, I've enjoyed the character of Beast Wars' Blackarachnia and, more recently, Airachnid from TransFormers Prime. The obvious answer is that both characters are very much in the tradition of the Femme Fatale, whose allure would tend to outweigh any sense of danger or unease that might come from the 'spider' aspect.

And, of course, they're not crawling about on my bathroom ceiling... but that's neither here nor there, right?

BingoToys weren't particularly on my radar until BT-06. Their previous output - including a Bumblebee movie Shockwave with an alternate mode every bit as dubious as his robot mode, and a Windblade analogue that didn't tick enough of the right boxes for me - hadn't inspired me, both because the aesthetics were unappealing and the transformations were lacklustre. That all changed with Spider Lady, who is a stylised take on Blackarachnia in much the same way as Big Firebird's Nicee was to have been a stylised take on Arcee.

Is this going to be a case where the temptation of a Femme-Bot Fatale outweighs my typical preference for a halfway decent transformation and a suitably robotic robot mode? Saddle up, folks, 'cos there's only one way to find out!

MetaGate G-05 Red Fantasy

(Femme-Bot Friday #85)

The Bumblebee movie didn't just bring a new, unprecedented coherence to storytelling in live action TransFormers movies, but a whole new aesthetic. Gone were the overcomplicated, oddly-proportioned Autobots and the insectoid Decepticons seemingly made of needles, knives and random metal shavings; the overabundance of grey and bare metal. The framing of each shot gave characters breathing room, allowing for physical characteristics to shine through, and individual robots were easily distinguishable at a glance, even in the thick of the action. No longer were we, for example, stuck looking at Optimus Prime's armpit as he cut a swathe through legions of Decepticons in the middle of a city, or watching Starscream gob up some lubricant in hyper-sharp, ILM-crafted detail.

Sure, the movie only really featured two Decepticons for the bulk of the story, but what Decepticons they were! Shatter and Dropkick were the ideal - not to say archetypal - pairing of brains and brawn, with the former even convincing the proto-Sector 7 team to work with them, despite representing themselves as "Decepticon Peacekeepers", a flagrantly oxymoronic description if ever there was one. Silver-tongued Shatter was the standout villain, exhibiting intelligence, cunning and a keen mind for strategy, with the dulcet tones of Angela Bassett breathing life into her. To cap it all, both she and Dropkick became Triple Changers, which naturally made it difficult for Hasbro to make toys of them.

To make them viable, Hasbro essentially made two versions of each in as many size classes as possible... The Deluxe class Studio Series car mode Shatter was a clumsy, flimsy mess, but the jet mode toy was excellent, if a little overburdened with vehicle mode parts on its backpack. However, it wasn't long till Third Parties started teasing their plans to make (loosely) Masterpiece scale figures that would actually feature both car and jet modes all in one. Toyworld announced theirs first, back in 2019, but relative newcomers MetaGate - creators of the stunning, triple-changing movieverse Drift, Haiku - were the first to actually ship theirs and, even at first glance, it looked substantially better.

But let's have a closer look and see exactly what kind of dark magic had been brought to bear on this character...