Beast Machines Optimus Primal

Along with mega Tankor and a few others in the Beast Machines line, this toy is a primary reason for some of the dislike of the line. Like Tankor, it's completely show inaccurate, which, as I'm sure has been explained to you before, is really the case of the show not being toy accurate. Anyway, on to the review.

Okay, well, unlike Tankor, who was a cool toy despite the show inaccuracies, this toy is not cool. All right, first off I should mention that the prospect of the toy is cool. I like the colors and the plastics and the potential of the gimmicks. The idea of it is nice. The execution is pretty bad however.

Beast mode is a gorilla, of course (what else would you expect from Primal?), but it's not very stable or fun. His arms are big and pretty cool, but he has no wrist joints, so to put his hands in any kind of pose (they're really dumb looking hands, by the way) gets him elbows going the wrong way and stuff. Bleh. His rear legs (well, his only legs I guess) are no better. He can't stand on them since they're molded to be hands, and his waist isn't pegged into anything, so it swings freely on a hinge. Not cool. They are fairly poseable, but his right leg has a limited thigh joint due to the gimmick which gets in the way here (it's for robot mode).

His beast mode gimmick consists of you pulling a tab on his back out and pushing it inwards. It results in his chest opening, his mouth opening (if it's positioned right) and his spark showing through his chest. Has potential, but it doesn't come across as looking horribly cool. It doesn't help any that the way his arms are held in at the shoulders is basically nonexistent. Stability issues up the butt.

Transformation is what you might expect, but it has a few hidden goodies. I actually needed the instructions to find his robot head. He hinges apart below the chest and his entire beast mid-section folds up and becomes his weird backpack (which I guess could be his jetpack, though it's a stretch). Also, just a funny side note, but his monkey butt ends up on his back. His gorilla arms become his robot legs, folding down and latching together like BW Silverbolt or Bantor. However, they don't peg together very well at all (if they even peg) and he ends up doing crotch splits (ouchie) half the time.

He also comes with a weird green star thing which stores in his leg (or arm if he's in beast mode). Stick it in his right hand (if you can get it to stay) and he'll fling it in all its spring loaded glory. Not very impressive, and the poseability in that arm is severely limited by this gimmick.

All in all, not that great of a toy. You can actually find him at a few KB Toys (in the North East US anyway) as their warehouses bought cases with him, deluxe Jetstorm, Triceradon and Airaptor a bit late. I think they're $5.99, which is a bit more than he's worth, but if you buy the whole assortment you'll get your money's worth as the other three are very strong toys.