For his outing for the third movie, Mudflap's given up his previous alt mode and taken the same Chevy Spark alt mode as the more "dominant" twin Skids, though to help differentiate them both in vehicle mode Mudflap has orange stripes down the middle as opposed to Skids' green. Proportionally, there's not much negative to say about this mode-- it looks pretty darned close to a Chevy Spark, and the only real robot mode extras are the bits you can barely see through Mudflap's tinted windows and the tips of his feet poking down below the bottom of of the car. Other than perhaps the wheel hubs, everything that needs to be painted on this toy in this mode is painted, to boot. Of course there's the two orange stripes running down the length of the body, which not only make it more visually interesting but serve as a really nice contrast color against all the black-- however, the silver headlights and silver-and-red taillights look pretty good too. Even the little Chevrolet symbol on the front as well as the side mirrors are painted. I will have to say, though, that due to Mudflap's transformation, it can be rather difficult to get his side doors to line up just right in this mode, which is a bit frustrating. Mudflap has two Mechtech ports in this mode, both on the sides of the top of his roof. His actual Mechtech weapon is a rather thick-barreled gun that, if you push back on the lever at the top of the weapon, elongates out to form an axe. It's not all that impressive, but it's not outright bad, either. Like nearly all Mechtech weapons, it unfortunately can't stay locked into its "activated" axe mode, and reverts back to gun mode as soon as you let go of the lever.
    Just like his twin's Mechtech deluxe toy, Mudflap loses nearly all of his good looks in robot mode. Granted, some of this is on purpose-- Mudflap is, after all, a doofy character with slightly odd proportions, such as having feet a bit on the large side, his left arm bigger than his right, and his ugly face sculpt (that face.... ugh), but this goes above and beyond that. His hood hangs off his back rather unceremoniously, not folding up much, and his car doors hang out a bit too much behind his shoulders to really count much as simply "contributing to his silouhette/uniqueness". (They also don't clip into anything on his shoulders, and at least on mine the door pieces are on ball joints that are rather loose, adding to the frustration.) His chest sticks out a ridiculous amount in front of his head, even for a Transformer, and his feet are a bit TOO large. This gives him good stability, of course, but it still looks weird. Additionally, his front wheels are supposed to "collapse" into his chest, but they do a pretty poor job of it-- a simple look from a side angle has them just laying inside there a bit, at odd angles to the chest. (From a side angle, one can also see how oddly long his torso/waist piece is.) On the plus side, Mudflap's arms look pretty good overall, and he's got a lot of mold detailing on his robot parts-- from pistons and vents to gears, it's all there. His head, waist, and chest also have these details painted in quite well with silver and orange; his legs and arms a bit less so, though. When it comes to articulation, Mudflap can move at the neck (at two points), shoulders (at four points), elbows (at two points), hips (at two points), and knees (at two points). So given his good, stable feet, he can take up a decent number of poses, though nearly all of them will still look doofy because of how odd his proportions and kibble are. Mudflap gains two more Mechtech ports in this mode, in the side of his lower arms; however, he also has a point on each shoulder for a C-clip weapon, should you have those and want to pump up his weaponry a bit.
    DotM deluxe Mudflap has a pretty good vehicle mode and a nice color scheme, but his robot mode is one that suffers from all sorts of problems-- odd proprtions and a lot of kibble chief among them. I understand they wanted Mudflap's transformation to be simpler this time around-- and it is-- but the end result is one of the worst toys from the main line. Not recommended unless you're a completist or a big Mudflap fan.

Review by Beastbot

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