Optimus Prime's largest Prime toy of 2012 makes the vehicle mode transition quite accurately-- from the front, at least. The front half of this mode has proportions that are very accurate to the show model, albeit slightly more rounded at a few spots, likely to fit U.S. safety laws. The mold detailing-- as befits a toy from this line-- has relatively little mold detailing, but there are spots that have a considerable amount of little details-- and they're a bit more widespread on this toy, given the large scale. Rivets dot the toy all over, and some details like the side doors are molded in. However, most of the paint detailing in this mode is relegated to the smokestacks, the window rims, and the headlights, with a bit of triangular blue detailing on the middle sides, to fit with his show look. The silver used for this is a bit pale, however, and a bit of an oddly bland shade-- I really would've preferred a bit "straighter" shade of silver on this toy to this. There's also some yellow paint on the headlights. The overall scheme is classic Prime, being mostly dull red and dark blue, with some dark and light gray thrown in as a neutral color (and more obvious in robot mode than in vehicle mode). You probably know by now whether you're a fan of it, so no real surprises here-- though the gray is a VERY light, almost white shade of the color, in a manner similar to the silver paint-- and as such, it looks a bit too light and slightly off. Alright, now let's tackle the elephant in the room here-- Optimus Prime's back end of this mode is just AWFUL. There's wheels and a bit of a blue "shell" of a back end on the sides, but the back of the robot chest "fake windows", the lower arms, Prime's spare gun, his feet-- they're all RIGHT THERE, out in the open, not even really trying to be hidden. Most of the blue back section is also hollow on the interior, too, so it doesn't look solid at all-- and there's also odd bumps at the back end which become his heels in robot mode, but here just look weird. Really, there's nothing at all good I can say about the back end-- no matter what gimmick he has, there's just no excuse for this sloppy of a vehicle mode at this scale. However, to pull you back towards the positives, Optimus Prime's "Weaponizer" gimmick IS mighty cool. If you unhook the top section of the front bumper and then press down in the dark gray button on the top left of the roof, a red LED light will come on in the interior of the toy (which doesn't really do much in this mode, sadly), and then the side sections of the truck nose slide forward, two rotary guns spinning forward at an impressively fast rate out of the grill-shaped hole at the front and ready to lay some surprise firepower on some unlucky Decepticons! It's quite an addictive gimmick, and fun to do over and over again.
    Optimus Prime's robot mode thankfully looks considerably better than his vehicle mode, though it still does suffer from a few downsides due to how much room his Weaponizer gimmick takes up. He has quite a bit of stuff behind his back, and it sticks out quite far beyond that back, meaning that he's fairly back-heavy-- thankfully, his large feet can handle this unless you're leaning him back a fair amount. Behind his head, he's got his Weaponizer guns, then his vehicle grill, then his vehicle roof section, and THEN the show-accurate smokestack pieces, but they're so far back they don't amount to much here. Thankfully, if you ignore that huge weighty backpack, Optimus Prime's proportions are largely spot-on in this mode. His shoulders could stand to be a bit larger, but he's pretty show-accurate in this respect, with a fairly wide chest, an excellently-molded and detailed face and chest/waist detailing, and a pretty good amount of mold detailing on his arms, too, with even the little bits at the joints in his fingers molded into the toy (though he can't move at the fingers-- he's still a little too small for that to be feasible). All the necessary paint details are here, such as the fake "headlights" on his abdomen, the silver bits on his lower legs, the rims of his fake windows, and the face-- however, there aren't any "extra" details to help vary the colors a tad more, which leaves his arms looking rather bare. Optimus' gun accessory can be held securely in either of his fists in this mode, and when it's fully in it can look similar to when he "converts" a hand into a blaster-arm in the show. (It can also peg into a hole in either of his shoulder pads, but it doesn't fit in all the way and generally looks a bit odd here.) For articulation, Optimus can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points), elbows, wrist rotation, and movement at the hips (at two points, one of them ratcheted), the knees, and slightly at the ankles. Thus, other than waist rotation, he's got you pretty covered in terms of articulation-- if he wasn't so back-heavy, he could pull off some pretty impressive poses, and even then still can manage a few neat ones. The "Weaponizer" gimmick can work in this mode too, and actually works better here than in vehicle mode-- by pressing on the yellow tab on his abdomen, his dual rotary guns spin up out of his back and then automatically face forward over his shoulders while a red LED briefly goes on inside Optimus' chest (one of the very few times in the 2012 Prime toys where the light piping works decently well). The end result is DARN cool-looking, and to "reload" the rotary guns back into Optimus' back you simply move the red slider back down Optimus' stomach until it clicks into place.
    Weaponizer Optimus Prime has a really cool, interactive gimmick that works in both modes, and although his robot mode's very back-heavy, it by and large gets the job done, too. However, Optimus' vehicle mode has an absolutely atrocious, hollow back end, with tons of robot mode extras in plain sight back there. If this was a little Legion-class toy, I'd be more forgiving, but at this size? That's absolutely unacceptable. If videos of the Weaponizer gimmick in action make you want the toy that much in spite of all its flaws, go for it-- otherwise, go for one of the many, better, smaller Prime Optimus Prime molds.

Review by Beastbot

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