Autobot Jazz (Original Deluxe) [Movie]
Vehicle ModeRobot Mode
Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: Moderately light dull milky gray, black, and some light red, transparent moderately dark blue, metallic bronze, metallic light bluish silver, and dull metallic yellow
Rating: 7.4 (original); 7.6 (Allspark Power)*

    Jazz's vehicle mode is a very realistically-proportioned Pontiac Solstice. With the exception of a few telltale extra pins and pieces on the rear bumper, there's no robot extras whatsoever in this mode, even if you look through the transparent blue windows. The dashboard inside the windows is a bit oversized, but the drivers' seats are definitely molded in there. Jazz's weapon-- an extendo-sword-- is mounted on his rear spoiler in this mode, which obviously doesn't make him look as much "in disguise" as he otherwise would be, but it's easily removable if you so desire anyways. The major downside to this mode, however, is that it's very dull-looking, like the other movie-accurate iterations of this design. The dull gray should have been painted silver, like on the car, to make it look both more realistic and REALLY slick. All this dull gray, combined with a "bar minimum" amount of detailing in vehicle mode and paint apps concentrated almost entirely on the front and rear bumpers, hardly makes Jazz stand out.
    Jazz's robot mode is okay, but it has some definite proportional problems. For one, his head is way too far back relative to his chest. His lower arms are really flimsy, as they're just two of the flat panels of his car mode folded together with a claw piece flipped out. He can't even really "hold" his weapon-- it attaches to the side of one of his lower arm pieces inside. His legs, on the other hand, are really bulky, and although they (along with the rest of the robot mode) are excellently detailed in regards to both paint apps and the mold itself, they look like they belong to a much larger-sized Transformer when compared to the upper body. On the other hand, Jazz's spoiler-shield is somewhat cool, and his head sculpt is spot-on and awesome-looking to boot, with the light piping working very well for the visor. Jazz has decent, but not really outstanding, articulation-- he can move at the shoulders (at three points), elbows, head, hips, knees (at two points), and ankles. However, his hip and knee articulation is restricted a little due to a curved tab on the top of his lower leg piece in addition to the car doors molded on the sides of his upper legs, which kind of get in the way of each other a bit when posing him. Jazz's "automorph" feature is rather tame compared to some other Transformers-- when you push down his windshield piece onto his back, his head will fold upwards and the middle of his chest will push out a little. You have to push in the windshield piece REALLY hard to get it to stick, however, and Jazz's head still tends to look a little downwards even when the automorph feature is activated.
    Deluxe Movie Jazz is a bit of an underwhelming figure, giving the very cool design he has on the big screen. He has a dull, though well-proportioned, vehicle mode, and an excellently detailed but pretty misproportioned robot mode. I actually like the Fast Action Battler version better than this toy, simpler though it is. If you're only going to spring for one version of this mold, though, I'd wait for the G1-inspired Target Exclusive repaint coming out in a few months instead, as its paint job looks quite promising.

Review by Beastbot
 

Second Opinion by VBBN

Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Rating: 7.2 (original); 7.4 (Allspark Power)*

    Jazz's vehicle mode is a Pontiac Solstice. At first I thought it was a Porsche when I saw the prototype of him, but alas that is not the case. It looks pretty good, but it seems just a bit too large when compared to other figures-- he is a bit bigger than Bumblebee in vehicle mode, when he should be the same or smaller. In any case, he looks realistic, and the drivers seats are nice additions-- better than nothing. Paint apps are okay, the rim around the ties works, but the dull gray plastic is cheap looking, like a KO. I really dislike the extendo-sword-- with all the weapons movieformers have, a tiny sword (it's not even a sword, more like a jousting stick) isn't going to be very effective.
    In robot mode, Jazz isn't terrible, but he is the weaker of the Autobots. Let me start with the problems. Firstly, his arms are pretty sad, just the hood folded up, causing them to be flat and hollow. His legs, while they look great, also kinda look strange with the doors on them. But the detailing is great, head looks very G1-esque for a movieformer, and the paint detailing looks nice as well. My last complaint is that his articulation, while there may be plenty points of it, is very limited. This isn't helped by the fact everything besides his head are hinges, not balljoints. His head sags down as well, the spring doesn't seem strong ehough. As for his automorph, I'm not too sure what Beastbot means about having to really push the windshield hard into his back, mine fits fine. Maybe it is just a distribution thing. His automorph is lame and takes away from the figure overall (the head, like stated earlier, is sagging down a bit).
    All in all, Jazz is middle-of-the-line as far as movieformers go. If you don't have this guy, I don't think I would get it if I were you. Sure, get a version of this mold, but get the Premium Jazz, ROTF Smokescreen, or Target Exclusive G1 Jazz instead, all of their color schemes are superior to this one and help oversee the mold flaws a bit.

Review by VBBN



Autobot Jazz Bio:
If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing with style, thinks Autobot Jazz. The coolest of the Autobots, he rolls into battle against the Decepticons with slick moves and a banging sound system. There’s no limit to his courage, and nothing he won’t do in defense of Earth and the AllSpark. Drawing his blade, he prepares to bring the fight up close and personal with Megatron and his evil metal soldiers.

Autobot Jazz (Allspark Power) Bio:
Though he was badly damaged – almost destroyed – in the final battle Autobot Jazz is back. Thanks to the power of the AllSpark he’s more powerful than ever.

Strength: 6.0
Intelligence: 6.0
Speed: 9.0
Endurance: 7.0
Rank: 8.0
Courage: 9.0
Fireblast: 6.0
Skill: 5.0


*In addition to the normal release, a Target-Exclusive release of Jazz in "Allspark Power" packaging, with some Allspark blue paint (but no other changes), was released. I think it looks a little nicer than the original, and spices up the color scheme a bit.

Back to Transformers Movie Toys Index