Grimlock's robotic t-rex mode does a pretty good job of taking the traditional G1 toy design and modernizing it with a lifted tail, while also making it a bit more "kid-friendly" in its aesthetics. Grimlock's t-rex face certainly has some sharp teeth and some angles, but he looks bit friendly-- the blue eyes have a bit friendlier of an expression, he's got big "eyebrows", as well as a slightly chubbier jaw. Given that Grimlock is a fictional robotic version of a creature, it's kinda hard to be as "judgy" about his proportions as, say, a jet, but even given the aesthetic the butt area is a bit too big proportionally, since it's mostly the lower robot legs. The body is also rather skinny in comparison to that fat rear section. The lower black section of the tail is pretty proportional, though, as are the little dino arms. The legs are a bit chunky but roughly proportional-- however, the're completely out to the sides of the main body, which obviously isn't accurate to an actual t-rex, and can look a bit off from a more frontal angle. The mold detailing is the norm for Cyberverse, being a bit on the sparse side, but with some basic, angular lines-- particularly obvious on the head and legs, where there's several angular lines down their length. There's also some nifty little spikes coming out of the sides of his body and on the top and rear end of his tail, giving him that basic "lizard" appearance. The color scheme is mostly classic Grimlock, but the gold of the original scheme has been replaced with a slightly more "kid-friendly" yellow (which also, probably not coincidentally, makes him fit with the yellow packaging more). The main color is of course gray-- unfortunately his is of that blah milky kind, though at least it's a few shades darker than normal. There's the aforementioned yellow on the lower legs and butt/lower robot legs. There's some black plastic used for the rear dino tail, as well as some black paint on the rocket pods in his upper legs. There's also a titch of dark blue, on squares on his lower butt/robot legs. There is some red in this mode on squares on his back and on circles on his hips. There's some more red, but to see it you have to activate his gimmick-- press down on the right robot foot piece on his backside, and in a really cool fashion, four "fire fins" and fire breath pieces spring out of his back and mouth! This is a really nifty gimmick, and it can be easily reset just by inserting the fire piece back into his mouth. These pieces all have some yellow near the bottom that transitions to some pale red, basically transforming him from robotic dinosaur to a fire-breathing, fire-finned Godzilla! For articulation in this mode, Grimlock can move at the shoulders, hips, and back-and-forth at the knees. His jaw can open up a little, but it's spring-loaded, so as you let go he'll shut it (assuming he doesn't have the fire breath piece in the way).
    Transforming Grimlock to robot mode, like most Action Attackers, is fairly simple. Split the tail in half and fold down the "shells" of the lower legs over the black tail halves to form the complete robot legs. Flip out the fists from the bottom of the dino feet, then unhinge the chest and rotate the robot head and the dino body/head back, then close the chest and you're done. The end result is largely pretty good, and proportionally the stronger of the Grimlock's two modes; from both a front and side view, he looks pretty decent. The arms are nice and beefy, as are the legs-- or least, they appear to be. You can see from the interior sides that the bulk of the "mass" of the legs are just from the large panels on the outside sides and front-- only the slim black tail sections inside of them are actually solid. Still, he's pretty stable, and those tail ends form pretty good heels. The body is pretty proportional as well, with some angular "teeth"-like details on the chest, and some armor-like "skirt" details on the sides of the waist. The headsculpt has the large angular side vents of Grimlock and the round black forehead, though the actual face is incorrect-- he doesn't have a faceplate on the show, he has a "normal" mouth, and never shows anything different. With this different headsculpt it kinda ruins the characterization of Cyberverse Grimlock as essentially his G1 self in beast mode, but a highly erudite individual in robot mode, so that's kind of a bummer. He doesn't have the more show-and-G1-accurate "dino body half flaps" behind his shoulders, but honestly I like a bit more originality here. The biggest downside to this mode is definitely the fact the entire upper body, neck, and head of the t-rex are behind his back in one long piece that extends down this knees-- the price of having that awesome flame gimmick. However, it largely stays out of the way, especially given that Grimlock can't move his knees. (His articulation is at the shoulders, hips, and back-and-forth at the elbows.) The colors are slightly more broken-up in this mode, with black more common-- on the fists and upper legs-- and there's also some added yellow on the chest, red on the abs, and some silver, black, and blue on the head. This in addition to most of the paint apps from beast mode being visible, so thankfully he doesn't suffer the "not enough paint!" complaint you'll get from me a lot for post-2015-ish Transformers.
    Cyberverse ultra Grimlock certainly has some faults-- a big piece of the dino mode hanging off the back of his robot mode, some proportional issues in beast mode-- but by and large, he's exactly what toys aimed at kids younger than collectors but older than the Rescue Bots crowd should be-- he's solid, relatively good-looking, and with a gimmick that is just REALLY fun to see but doesn't otherwise cripple the toy. An easy recommendation for younger kids.
 

Review by Beastbot

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