Official solicit:

TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED Voyager Class: GRIMLOCK

GRIMLOCK more than lives up to the reputation of his Tyrannosaurus Rex mode. Ill-tempered, powerful, and always ready for a fight, he loves to throw his weight around. He likes the way the ground shakes as he stomps around, and the way people scatter when he roars. He’s happiest on DINOBOT Island, where he can stomp and roar to his Spark’s content, shattering trees with his tail, and breathing jets of flame into the sky. Every once in a while, though, he prefers to find the biggest, most powerful DECEPTICON he can, and smash its chassis to pieces.

Convert this DINOBOT leader from robot mode to T-Rex mode and back again. Pose the robot crusader with his “flaming” sword in hand. Change him into T-Rex mode and the sword becomes a removable jet of fire breath! Snapping jaws and gold-colored accents make this advanced-conversion figure an impressive addition to your collection.

June 2006
MSRP 19.99USD

I have to admit, I’ve been pretty caught up in all this Transformers Animated frenzy that has swept the internerds the last few months. Watching the show every week, reading the message boards for news and images of the toys, getting excited when the figures were first being spotted at retail in K-marts and Clevelands (yikes!), and even considered pre-ordering a few of the figures directly from Hasbro when they went up on their site a few months ago. Alas, I did not, and got ahold of my nerd tendencies as best I could. I decided that the only figures from the line I really wanted were Starscream and the Leader Bulkhead figure, because otherwise I was likely to buy up the whole damn line - and that’s just ridiculous.

However, when the chance arose recently for me to get my hands on 2 of the 3 Animated Dinobot figures (for literally a steal), I jumped at it, if only so I could add some more reviews to the site. Little did I know that I would just be feeding the plastic crack-addict within by doing this…

Right away I’ve got to say I love the packaging for the Animated line. The bright colors, the whites, the whole design, it really pops. Much better than the dark and gloomy packaging for the movie figures, or the extra reds on the Classics packaging too. Doesn’t hurt than the new logo is so much fun too, yeah?

No tech specs on these, but there is a pretty lengthy bio on the back of Grimlock’s box, as well as info on his sword and other gimmicks. Out of box, you can see Grimlock is held onto a printed card by a few wires, and the card features artwork from the cartoon - a cityscape background of Detroit which is I think a really nice touch.

Grimlock comes packaged in T-rex mode, so that’s what we’re gonna talk about first. Overall, he’s pretty cool looking, and also extremely accurate to his cartoon counterpart. Standing about 7 inches at his tallest in dino-mode, Grimlock has a lot of mobility for something so stocky. His legs move at his “hips”, able to adjust for any stance or weigh variance. His “ankles” rotate to allow for even more posability too. His mouth opens and closes thanks to an action gimmick, a button on the top of his neck, which is pretty cool. And also, his eyes feature light-piping and will glow blue when a light source is behind him.

Dino-mode is lots of fun, and as stated, pretty accurate not only to the cartoon, but also to his G1 counterpart. The only major flaws here are the fact his puny little arms don’t rotate or offer much in the way or movement at all really. AND, as you can see in the far right pic above, there is a pretty big cavity in his chest, for what reason I can’t tell you. I’m not really sure why the opening in the chest wasn’t fixed in the design mode, as it not only allows for Grimlock’s robot head to be seen, but is just plain ugly looking too. This has already been an issue with fans, seeing others design and build their own covers for the hole with styrene or other various parts (and I’ve even worked one up too!), covers that not only make Grimlock look tons better, but also don’t affect transformation either. Thumbs down on that point, Hasbro.

Transformation to robot mode is pretty simple. Also, again very similar to the G1 Grimlock as well. In robot mode, Grimlock towers at around 6.5 inches, and is also exceptionally stocky as well. Grimlock’s weapon is his lava flame sword, which has a gimmick that allows threads of flame to pop-out thanks to a button activation in Grimlock’s right hand triggered by rotating at the wrist. I’ve heard you could also put the sword into his mouth in dino-mode to double as some kind of flame breath, but I was never able to figure that out because I am apparently an idiot!

Robot mode is fare more impressive than I would have thought, and after playing with him a bit he really grew on me. If you asked me 2 months ago if I would have even wanted a Grimlock figure, I’d have said no. Any notion about thinking dinosaurs are cool left me by the time I was in was in high school, but here I am in my 30’s, again thinking about how cool this robot dinosaur is. Go figure.

Colors and paint apps are great. Fairly accurate to the cartoon, his reds are a little darker than the cartoon version, as well as the black areas on the toy being more of a grey on the cartoon as well. Grimlock features 2 Autobot symbols on his body, one in the middle of his chest in robot-mode, and another on the side of his leg in dino-mode. Grimlock also has light-pipe features in robot-mode too, although I guess that can be said for pretty much every Transformer Hasbro puts out anymore, yeah?

Articulation is good enough on Grimlock. Featuring over 20 points of articulation, Grimlock can strike a variety of poses. It’s unfortunate that his head isn’t on a ball-joint, and his shoulders are also limited in their movement too, blocked by the height of his own chest area and arms, not allowing much movement in that regard. As you can see in the above far left pic, that’s as far as his arms can extend away from his body, which kind of sucks, but you get over soon enough.

His weight distribution is awesome, and Grimlock passed the Murdershow Karate Kick™ test with flying colors too! My only real complains have to do with his hip joints, and not being able to come forward very far without hitting his waist piece. It’s a bit limiting, but not horrible. It also would have been nice to get some rotation out of the elbow areas on the arms, but I can understand why that can’t happen because of the t-rex mode.

As a Voyager class figure, you can see how Grimlock will tower over the other 2 Dinobots (Swoop not pictured, because he ain’t out yet!) in their Deluxe size, as seen in the comparison shot above (middle) with Snarl. Although towering is as it should be I guess, since Grimlock IS king.

In the end, Grimlock here is a pretty exceptional figure, and I’m more impressed with him that I ever could have thought. I’ve read more than a few reviews of this guy so far, with people often citing loose joints and a bit of floppiness with theirs - luckily for me I didn’t have any problems with that at all.

Aside from the few gripes, the biggest being the chest cavity opening, I’ve got to say, Grimlock is a home run. Good design, great reproduction, fun features, and an awesome weapon to boot? Grimlock is going to be a fun figure for anyone, kids who like the new cartoon, or adults who like the new cartoon and also have a fondness for Grimlock in general - even if you don’t think dinosaurs are cool anymore either.