Bumblebee's vehicle mode is one of his more accurate toys, with a fairly movie-accurate version of his Chevrolet Camaro alt mode, with the small spoiler in the back and longer front bumper that's characteristic of his model in the film. Proportionally everything is spot-on in this mode, with ALMOST no robot mode extras; you can see just a BIT of his chest plate below the middle of the car mode, and his heels below the back end, but that's it. All of the needed mold details are here-- the Camaro-esque front grill, the edgy and extended front lower bumper, the vents on the front hood, the spoiler, and the slim lines on the rear end. The wheels also have some nice small treads on them as well. Unfortunately, as is par for the course for the TLK line, when it comes to paint it's another story. He does have black across much of the top, as you'd expect, and there's also some black paint on his front grill, and yellow on many of the details on his rear end. However, there still needed to be a better variety of colors here; with the exception of the tiny bit of metallic bronze on his all-important Chevy logo on the grill, he's ALL either black or orangish yellow in this mode. His windshield and rear window COMPLETELY blend in with the black stripe on the top, and definitely should've been painted another color like light blue or silver. His headlights also definitely needed some paint. That would've been enough honestly, but to up the wishlist further the obvious door handles and taillights also could've used some paint.
    To transform Bumblebee to his robot mode, pull apart the rear sections and fold them out and down to become his robot legs, and the rest of the figure will open up/auto-transform. The end result looks fairly similar to the RID2015 Drift 3-step changer, with the side rear chunks of the car forming the legs, the front chunks forming the shoulders and upper arms, and the car doors forming the sides of his lower arms. (The roof is on his back, and out of the way visually in this mode.) There's a pretty big positive with going with this general idea, as it keeps Bumblebee pretty kibble-free in both modes while also giving him a very simple transformation. Sure his shoulders are a bit bigger with some extra bits of the car mode on them, and his lower legs are a bit blockier than they should be, but when it comes to simplified transformers these little bits of kibble are small potatoes. The problem here is that instead of using a push-pull locking mechanism like Hasbro did on the RID2015 3-step Drift toy, this time around the legs just expand out and down on a hinge system-- one with NO LOCKING MECHANISM. I can't overstate what a huge mistake this was, and it's by a large margin my biggest problem with this toy. Because the legs don't lock into place, gravity causes this toy to "sag" noticeably at the knees, with the lower legs sliding out to the sides a bit when they should come more-or-less straight down from the upper legs. This also causes the shoulders to be up a bit higher due to everything being interconnected because of the transformation. As if that wasn't enough, it ALSO causes Bumblebee to be rather unstable, as his legs don't have a solid foundation and can give a little if you put him down on a surface a little unevenly. Still, overlooking that BIG issue, Bumblebee's proportions are otherwise fairly good outside of the aforementioned minor bits of kibble, and his upper legs, which are oddly more like his hip details extended down the entire length of said upper legs, what with the yellow bits on the sides. Still, other than that the mold detailing is quite impressive, with the usual movie 'Bee details on the legs and fold-out feet, silver robotic details on his arms, and the faux car front-chest. Bumblebee's headsculpt is also pretty accurate, with all the necessary details very well-sculpted. The only slight oddity is his "ears" have been elongated a bit at the sides, as that's where the pivot point is for his special "Knight Helmet". And speaking of the helmet gimmick, pressing down on the small button in the middle of his chest has the helmet flip down over his normal face. It looks pretty cool, like a more "EXTREME" version of his AoE mask, with multiple sets of slitted eyes this time and what look like multiple antennae off the sides, with most of it painted a light blue. With the exception of his chest, which is bare, Bumblebee is actually painted pretty well in this mode, with a good amount of silver paint all over his arms, his pelvis, and on his face. There's a bit of light blue on his eyes and a decent amount of yellow paint on the black pieces that make up his legs, too. As such, even though he's still mostly black and yellow (he IS Bumblebee, after all), his colors are broken up considerably better in this mode than in vehicle mode. For articulation, Bumblebee can move back-and-forth at the elbows, which is pretty much the standard for this subline.
    Knight Armor Turbo Changer Bumblebee is painful, because for a simplistic toy it was SO CLOSE to being one of the best. Little kibble in both modes, a good color break-up in robot mode, a nifty flip-down helmet gimmick, great mold detailing... all he would've needed would've been some more paint colors in car mode and maybe another point of articulation or two (can't get too picky on that last point for these simplistic TFs, given the age they're aimed at). But making the absolutely HORRID choice to put his lower legs on hinges instead of pull-and-lock mechanisms means he sags in robot mode, ruining the look of his legs and hunching his shoulders up too much. Oh, and it makes him unstable too, which I'm sure will delight little kiddies trying to stand him up straight. Because of that sole huge downside I'd recommend this the last out of all the Knight Armor Turbo Changer figures. This design needed more time in the QC department.
 

Review by Beastbot

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