Ion
Blast Autobot Jazz (Fast Action Battler)
Jazz's vehicle mode is
a slightly kiddie-fied Pontiac Solstice, with its proportions a bit wider
and "chubbier" than a real Solstice. Given that the Fast Action Battlers
subline is aimed at a slightly younger audience than the mainline movie
toys, this is certainly acceptable, though it is odd that the designers
have tended to pick-and-choose which FABs get the kiddie-fied treatment
and which don't. Anyways, this mode is pretty nice, with no robot extras
except for the rather obvious bottoms of the robot feet on the rear end.
The toy could also use a few more paint apps and mold detailing-- as is,
there's waaay too much dull gray on this figure, which makes it look rather
boring. Coating the gray plastic in silver paint, such as was done with
some Alternators, would have made it look much MUCH better. Still, all
the absolutely necessary details are there, at least.
The robot mode design
and transformation is hardly original, but it gets the job done and looks
pretty nice all around too, except for the aforementioned dull color scheme.
There is a cool "automorph" feature built into the toy as well-- as you
rotate his waist into its robot mode position, his head flips up automatically
and the middle of his chest pushes forward slightly. The proportions are
pretty good-- better than the "real" mainline deluxe
Jazz, in fact-- though the arms could be a tad longer and further away
from the main body. (Really, the fact that Jazz doesn't have any real shoulders
is my only main complaint with this mode.) His articulation is decent,
though not spectacular, with movement at the shoulders, hips, and knees.
He can also move at the waist, though it's on a spring and snaps back to
the standard forward position if you let go of it-- it can also only rotate
to the left until you let go of it, which is rahter odd... The roof of
his car mode does hang off his back rather unceremoniously as kibble, but
it isn't too cumbersome and doesn't affect articulation much, so I don't
mind it. The mold detailing on Jazz's robot parts is drastically improved
compared to his rather plain vehicle mode, with tubes, pistons, and other
mechanical detailing all over the place-- it looks really nice. His face
sculpt is awesome (ignoring the block of plastic behind his head), and
is actually more movie-accurate than the mainline deluxe Jazz, since his
antennae are shorter. As for Jazz's gimmick, his left arm is a standard
spring-loaded missile launcher.
Ion Blast Autobot Jazz
is a fairly good figure, even if he wasn't a Fast Action Battler aimed
at younger kids. He's got some pretty nice proportions in robot mode, a
nearly kibble-less vehicle mode, nice detailing on his robot parts, and
a non-intrusive gimmick. His only major downsides are his lack of robot
mode shoulders and his dull color scheme. Even though he's not quite as
movie-accurate as the normal mainline deluxe Jazz, I'd recommend this version
slightly over that one because of the robot mode. Mildly recommended.
Review by Beastbot