Bumblebee gets another big movieverse toy for a new line, and in vehicle mode Battle Ops Bumblebee is pretty solid. It's a Chevrolet Camaro, with Bumblebee's characteristic stripes and paint deco; there's no surprises here, and the proportions are spot-on. All of the necessary details are painted, from big ones like his stripes to small ones like the Chevrolet logos on his front and back bumpers. Unfortunately he doesn't have a real interior or anything like that-- you can see parts of his arms through his dark blue windows. This normally would be a minor complaint at best, but for this large and expensive of a toy I'd like at least an attempt at an interior instead of robot bits filling it all up. Ah, well. The main draw of this version of Bumblebee over the others are the electronics, so let's start spelling those out, shall we? Pressing the Autobot logo button above the front bumper in this mode will make Bumblebee either A. Make a "car alarm deactivated" beeping; B. Honk; C. Say "Nobody can catch Bumblebee!" with "random" radio clips; or D. Say "You wanna race?" with those same "random" clips, followed by a sound of his engine rumbling. The headlights blare yellow when all of these sound effects are playing, and like Battle Ops Bumblebee's other sound effects, they aren't random; they play in order described, then they repeat again. In addition, pressing up slightly on his front left tire (a bit of an obscure way to activate electronics, I know) will make his headlights AND red missile launchers inside his cockpit light up, and battle blasting sounds. The third time you press it in a row, there's a bit of an easter egg there for G1 fans; part of the G1 Transformers show theme song plays. Press it three more times, and a second part of the same song plays.
    Bumblebee plays a "transformation" sound effect when you connect his waist to his chest, though unfortunately during his transformation (which is pretty innovative in terms of how his legs unfold, though his top half is very much "been there, done that"), sound effects will go off almost ALL the time. He's quite a noisy toy, for good or ill. Anyways, in robot mode he looks quite good, and doesn't suffer much from his gimmickry in terms of looks or proportions much, with one caveat-- his main chest is a bit thick and deep because of the batteries inside of it, and comparative to other movie Bumblebee toys his legs look just a tad skinny and thin, which is exaggerated moreso when compared to the chest. Combined with the roof and door "wings" on his back (which are standard movie Bumblebee vehicle mode extras at this point), it makes him a little top-heavy. Other than the aforementioned back kibble, there's some bits of his car mode that stick out rather obviously around his upper legs/thighs, but other than that the parts fit in well with the general look of his robot appendages and are accurate to his movie model. The mold detailing is fantastic in this mode, with movie-accurate detailing everywhere-- it's particularly impressive around his waist and arms. I love the rubber wires that run from his waist to legs-- they make him more accurate to his movie model and don't really restrict movement much, either. A bit more paint could have been used on his waist and upper legs, but otherwise his color variety between the orangish yellow, dark bluish gray, and black is broken up a fair amount by bronze paint apps and a tad of transparent blue. Battle Ops Bumblebee's articulation is decent enough-- he can move at the shoulders (at two points on his left and at one point on his right), elbows (again, at two points on his left and one on his right), and (on the left arm) he can also move at the wrist, the base of the thumb, and the base of his other three fingers (as one piece). In addition, he can move at the hips (at two points), knees (at two points), ankles, and toes (at four points-- mostly on the back to help stabilize him). So, other than his head and right arm-- which are part of his whole "Battle Ops" gimmick-- you can get a fair amount of movement out of him. As far as the "Battle Ops" gimmick itself, depending on how his right cannon-arm is positioned, Bumblebee will emit different phrases/sounds in this mode. When his right arm is down and his "hand" out (it's a really weak hand, made of three translucent blue claws that look nothing like his other hand-- bleh), if you press on the Autobot symbol on his chest, the headlights on his chest will light up yellow, his eyes will blink green, and he'll say: A. "Time to take out the trash" in radio snippets; B. "I will protect you"; or C. "I'm so excited!" In addition, if you press the small red-painted bit on his upper right arm, you'll hear a "reloading" whirl sound effect as the same lights go off. Now, if you extend out his right arm, the cannon will telescope out around the claw in a motion that would be pretty cool if it didn't AUTOMATICALLY happen every time you extended said arm. As this happens, in addition to his head and chest lights going on, his cannon will glow red, and you'll hear a "charging-up" sound. And now, if you press his Autobot symbol, he'll say: A. "Don't make me use this thing!" or B. "Reach for the sky!" In addition, if you press on the light red buttom on his right shoulder, he'll either: A. Emit a "firing", then a "charging" sound; B. Emit a "firing", then a "BOOM!" radio-clip sound, then a "charging" sound, or C. Emit a different "firing" sound, followed by the same "charging" sound. And yes, he has still MORE sound effects-- if you flip down his robot "battle" helmet, he'll say either "Shields down!" or "Had enough?", while the same chest/eye things light up. If you press the light red button on his shoulder while said battle mask is down and his cannon is out, the cannon/chest/eyes will light up AS WELL AS red lights inside of the missile launchers that flip up over his shoulders, and he'll emit either a "blasting sound", or a "blasting sound" followed by "OH, that's HOT!" Finally, if you pull up on his helmet to reveal his normal face again, the chest/eye lights will go off again and he'll say, "Decepticons disabled!"
    Battle Ops Bumblebee's big draw is going to be the enormous amount of sound effects and blinking lights he's got in him, but even ignoring that he's a pretty decent representation of the movie character, looking pretty solid proportionally in both modes and without a ton of kibble, with a few somewhat minor exceptions. I do wish his sounds wouldn't go off so easily, though, and that his right arm could move without the auto-switching between "normal" and "battle" modes in robot mode, though the sound effects themselves are well-done and pretty clear. This toy would make a good gift for a casual young Bumblebee fan who loves lights, sounds, and gimmickry (and can do fairly involved transformations), though for someone who just wants a well-articulated and proportional Bumblebee, I'd recommend some of the various RotF deluxe releases or the Human Alliance releases of the character more.

Review by Beastbot

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