Review
By Roselaar:
Description: Like his JPS1 counterpart, JPS2 Muldoon is taller than most other humans figures, more muscular and heavy. He stands in a neutral pose, though his left arm hangs a bit to the side, making him balanced when he’s holding his bazooka. He wears a dark green suit (short pants and shirt) with a black vest. On the left front part of the vest he sports a light blue tag with the JP logo on it. He has black boots, a black belt and green socks. Additionally, he has a black knife holster strapped to his right lower leg and a black gun holster on a the belt around his waist (gun holster on the right upper leg). He has smooth, very short brown hair (he appears almost bald at first sight) and brown eyes and eyebrows. He has a very unhappy facial expression.
Muldoon comes with a large bazooka, basically a black tube with a small box at the end and a big one up front. On top of the gun near the front end there’s a large red button. When the bazooka is loaded with either one of the two red missiles it comes with, pressing the button makes the missile be fired with force, with a firing range of almost two metres and a good impact force. It’s one of the more effective and powerful weapons Kenner produced. Muldoon also features a black backpack with black straps so he can carry it on his back. The pack has two holes in it, one for either missile.
A Velociraptor hatchling completes this set. It stands in an attack posture, bracing itself for a jump with the right leg posed forward and its left leg moved back, the arms outstretched, showing all its small but already lethal claws. Its tail is raised upwards for balance. It has a puppy like head, its mouth opened, showing rows of small white teeth and a pink tongue hanging out, ready for a bite. Its paint job consists of a beige underside (lower tail, belly, throat, inner part of the legs), while the rest of the body is coloured brown, and a black stripe runs from the snout to the end of the tail, with smaller stripes running out from this main stripe. It has black eyes, and a white JP logo on its right upper leg. Its claws are unpainted.
Analysis: plainly said: Muldoon still kicks ass! His outfit, though less similar to that seen in the film, is quite good, even though it's green and black only. But the use of a darker colour scheme makes for an even grittier character. The new head sculpts definitely looks more like Bob Peck, sporting the infamous 'they should all be destroyed!' grim look on his face, complementing the darker outfit. This makes him even more of a bad ass than the JPS1 Muldoon.
The bazooka, which remains unchanged in paint job and design, is still a formidable weapon. It works very well and has a great firing range for such a small weapon, no doubt making it the weapon of choice for most JP toy fans. The set also comes with the same backpack to store the missiles in when unused. Both backpack and bazooka are still painted black, which does make this set a little monochromatic, since Muldoon himself is largely dressed in black as well.
The feeble T-Rex hatchling that came with JPS1 Muldoon has been replaced by an awesome little Raptor. Standing in a classic Raptor attack posture, this baby looks as butch as the game keeper, and makes a well chosen addition to this set (also increasing the irony, since Muldoon was of course killed by one of these critters). The paint job is excellent, largely identical to that of the adult Raptor figure from both JPS1 and JPS2, again adding consistency to the toy line. This hatchling figure does have some balance issues at times, tending to fall over if not standing on a flat enough surface because the front side is heavier than the back, despite the balance the tail offers. But this is but a minor issue for this otherwise fantastic little creature.
Playability: quite high. Muldoon himself provides for the usual poseable arms, legs and head. His bazooka is one of the most effective and playable weapons of all human figures. It has a great range and good impact force, comes with two different missiles for variety and the backpack provides storage space for both of them, be it loose or on Muldoon’s back. As all hatchlings, the little Raptor has no poseability of any kind.
Realism: this time around, the figure's head is a pretty good toy likeness for the actor, while the outfit looks less like the one Bob Peck wore in the movie (while it's the other way around for JPS1 Muldoon). Nevertheless, the design of the outfit still makes for a fine park warden feel. The bazooka wasn’t featured in the movie, though it’s probably the most realistic weapon of this toy line. The little Raptor is a bit more bulky than the Raptor hatchling seen in the movie, but still has a baby feel to him because of his puppy like head with big black eyes. It's also somewhat bigger, so it's probably supposed to be a few weeks older than its movie counterpart. Its paint job is a great match to that of the adult JPS1/2 Raptor figures, and not much unlike the colours of the movie Raptors either.
Repaint: as mentioned above, this set is a retooled JPS1 Robert Muldoon set, with a new head sculpt and paint job on the human figure, and a new hatchling. The baby Raptor would not be repainted for later toy lines, unlike the bazooka, which was reused for the TLW exclusive Young Tyrannosaurus set, and got a makeover for the TLWS2 Eddie Carr figure, (featuring some minor improvements and a slightly different paint job).
Overall rating: 9/10. In this case the improvements worked out okay, making an already kick ass figure look even better, keeping an excellent weapon excellent and adding a much better hatchling. The catch is that this figure is not as easy to find as its predecessor, being released solely in the USA. Ebay is the way to go in other territories, usually for relatively low prices, though this excellent figure does merit higher prices too.
|
