Transformers Animated Hot Rod/Rodimus Review

Transformers Animated, people either loved or hated it. The toyline was considered one of the best engineered ever, but poor, soft plastic used on most of the figures made their joints wear down into floppy messes. Animated was a mixed bag and its death was poorly handled, causing the show to end on a sour note and for several molds to never be released in the US, forcing people to import from Japan. The only good thing about the end was that the final molds that were released had far better plastic than most of the rest of Animated. Specifically, Animated Hot Rod/Rodimus and Arcee.

Hot Rod/Rodimus, is a sleek, sporty muscle car with a giant spoiler on the back. It rolls well and is extremely attractive, sporting Hot Rod's traditional Red/Yellow/Orange/Blue color scheme. The only two issues with the car mode is that his head can be seen through the wind shield and the rear back of the car is hollow. The only other thing of note about this mode is that it is extremely small for a $10 figure.

Unlike the car mode, Hot Rod/Rodimus' robot mode is HUGE. It's one of the larger robot modes by height and overall volume. He looks nice and is very stoic. The problem, however, is that while he has great leg poseability, because his feet are not flat on the inward side he cannot stand very well except when standing up straight. This is kind of a big problem, because figures that can only stand up straight tend to be fairly boring, and sadly, this applies to Hot Rod/Rodimus, too. He looks nice, but is not a fun toy, which is a shame because he has really nice plastic, has an amazing transformation and looks extremely nice.

Animated Hot Rod/Rodimus is a figure that should have been amazing, he WOULD have been amazing, except his feet are poorly designed. Sometimes it doesn't take much to ruin a figure and this is a prime example of that.

While I don't recommend this figure, it's still worth checking out because, despite the feet, everything else about this figure is a prime display and final note to the engineering that went into most of the Animated figures.