Like all his other Movieverse toys, Optimus Prime is a dark-blue-and-red truck cab with flame paint apps. However, due to the nature of the whole "Go-Bot" subline and gimmick, Prime's truck mode is EXTREMELY "superdeformed". The back end is about as high as the front end, and it generally looks like if you had taken a Play-doh replica of his truck mode and squished it up into a nearly square area (Prime's almost as wide as he is long!). I can't very well hold this against the toy that much given the nature and aimed audience of this little sub-line, but for Go-Bot Prime in particular the proportions are so out-of-whack it's hard to not smirk when you see him. The mold detailing in this mode is fairly minimal-- which is, again, expected given the very young audience these Go-Bots are aimed at. There's still a pretty good amount of paint apps in this mode, though, with the entire front grill painted silver in addition to his smokestacks, gas tank, and rear trailer hitch. He's also got painted windows on the front and those infamous flame paint apps of his on the nose (though not on the body; it's too short for there to be room for flame paint apps there, really). The color scheme is as you'd expect from Optimus Prime by this point, but the red and dark blue are particularly eye-catching colors, both of them being semi-metallic in nature due to all the glitter in the plastic. As part of the "Go-Bot" gimmick, pull back on him in this mode and then let him go, and he'll speed ahead a surpisingly long distance (assuming he's on tile or another very flat surface).
    Just like any Go-Bot, to transform Optimus all you do is pull back his hood and stand him up-- a good, simple idea for little kids. In robot mode Optimus continues the "superdeformed" look, with short, stubby legs with no real feet and similarly stubby arms. His head is also too big proportionally, to help make him look a bit more "cutesy" in this iteration, though surprisingly the head taken by itself looks pretty accurate to how he looks in the movie. As opposed to his vehicle mode, in robot mode he's got tons of little mold details on his chest and legs to help replicate (at least some of) his major movieverse details. It's all done pretty well, though unfortunately most of Optimus' robot mode is done up in a rather boring light gray plastic-- he loses a lot of his color "pop" in this mode. There are some red and dark blue paint apps on his chest and upper legs, but it's not enough, in my opinion. That said, the red and blue still do show through a decent bit from his vehicle mode (particularly the red, due to the large rectangular front piece of his vehicle mode hanging behind his shoulders and head). As for articulation, he can move his head from side-to-side a bit, up-and-down at the legs, and back-and-forth at the shoulders, but most of this movement has to do with his gimmick. Like all Go-Bots, Optimus Prime's pull-back-and-go gimmick still works in this mode, but it's pretty darned funny-- as he goes forward, his arms move back and forth, his leg panels move up and down, and his head moves from side-to-side-- all super-quick! Not only is it an impressive gimmick, but it looks hilarious at the speed it's going, like watching a toddler run in fast motion.
    Optimus Prime continues the Go-Bot's central gimmick of being superdeformed in both modes, having an uber-simple transformation, and a hugely fun (and funny) gimmick. I don't like how much plain gray pokes through in robot mode, the big grill hanging off his upper back in robot mode, or the extreme extent that his vehicle mode is squashed up. Otherwise, he's pretty good for the subline and has some really nice red and blue plastic and paint apps. A middle-of-the-line release, as far as the small Go-Bots subline goes.

Review by Beastbot

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