Grimlock's t-rex mode looks pretty good overall, though in terms of proportions you can tell they based this off of earlier concept art compared to the show model; the head is a little off and a bit more "fierce"-looking, and his stomach and to a lesser extent the legs should be a bit bulkier, while his hands should be a little smaller. Taken by itself, though, everything looks good overall, with few robot mode extras except for just a BIT of the robot legs and waist visible on the lower stomach, but it's not obvious. The one thing that does bug me are the robot claws quite visible on the lower t-rex legs, especially because of the different color. Those should have been on the inside of the legs, at least. The t-rex chest is also (most of) the robot chest, but it looks good as both, so I don't mind it. As far as mold detailing goes, the tail is nice, bulky, and ridged, and his face is well-sculpted (although, again, slightly off compared to the show model), and his arms have a surprising amount of little details and ridges in them. Otherwise, though, Grimlock takes the RID2015 norm of not having a whole lot of mold detailing outside of little divots here and there. His color scheme is the RID2015 usual of green and black with some blah light milky gray plastic used on the arms and a few other small areas-- overall it looks good, though I wish the gray was a bit more metallic in shade. There's also some silver on the teeth and snout, a really nice vibrant blue on the eyes, and some nice metallic bronze on the headcrest and circular details on the hips. He's missing the several yellow highlights from the show, but then again basically every toy of him has this issue. For articulation in this mode, Grimlock can move at the jaw (there's a little tab at the base of his neck to help move it more easily), as well as at the shoulders, hips (at two points), and knees (at two points). Beyond maybe a point or two of tail articulation, you can't ask for much more at this scale. It should be noted, however, that the ratchet joints used for Grimlock's knees have cracked and "exploded" on many early copies of this toy, due to them being far too tight. If you get this toy, make sure you're not getting one of the first-run copies.
    Grimlock's transformation takes a few queues from G1 Grimlock with the t-rex legs becoming the arms and the tail becoming the robot legs, but the sides of the chest rotate up in a pretty interesting manner, and more of the back ends up in the legs than on G1 Grimlock. The only mildly confusing part about the transformation is that you have to rotate the t-rex arms back just a bit, rotate up the chest sides and robot arms, and then FINISH rotating the t-rex arms back all the way. The end result is a VERY show-accurate Grimlock toy in robot mode. There's a couple of minor extras-- namely the t-rex head and arms behind his back, though only the arms look a bit odd as they poke out from behind the sides of the chest a bit. They don't get in the way of articulation. There's some other minor issues-- like the t-rex toes on the wrists and the lower legs being a bit thicker than normal because of how much of the tail and back fold up in there-- but these don't bug me much, considering the stellar end result. Really, other than missing the yellow paint apps from the show, it's hard to find any other real fault in this mode-- it all looks spot-on. The headsculpt is very well-detailed, complete with a well-painted metallic bronze face and blue eyes. He's also very articulated, with movement at the neck, shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), inwards at the wrists, and at the hips (at two points) and knees (at two points). Given that he's well-balanced, this means he can take on a wide variety of poses. On a special little extra note, his transformation totally allows you to put his t-rex head over his robot head with the rest of his robot mode unchanged, which is a pretty funny albeit presumably unintentional feature.
    RID2015 warrior Grimlock is a solid, well-articulated toy, and one that I'd whole-heartedly recommend for any Transformers fans who may like the aesthetic of the show, but don't like the simpler, less-articulated versions of the characters. His t-rex mode is minorly off in terms of some proportions, but his robot mode is pretty much spot-on perfect, he's got a satisfying transformation, and a lot of poseability. He's my favorite of the Warrior molds from the 1st year of the line. Again, though, make sure you don't get a first-run Grimlock so you can avoid the "exploding ratchets" problem.
 

Review by Beastbot

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