Transformers Movie Toy Review: Wreckage

With the Transformers movie due to be released on the 4^th of July, there is a veritable plethora of toys out in stores now. This particular action figure is called Wreckage and he is definitely worth buying. Wreckage retails at $9.99 but Wal-Mart is selling this particular wave for $7.98. This figure is a military armored personnel carrier vehicle that transforms into what else but a giant robot. He is a Decepticon.

Wreckage will not to be in the Transformers movie, but it is rumored that he will be in the Transformers video game. It doesn't really matter much though, because this is one of the better Transformers figures ever.

There is not much paint application on him; he is mostly composed of white, red and gray plastic. There are some painted gold and silver accents though, and while he is in vehicle mode there is also some gray camouflage-type paint on the white plastic. What paint application there is on Wreckage is applied well. The lack of paint application is one thing that makes this action figure look better. Mass painted figures often tend to have their paint applied un-uniformly and that can make for a figure that just doesn't look very good no matter how nicely designed it is.

Wreckage is nicely sculptured with good detail. In fact, some may not appreciate this figure at first because the vehicle may look a little plain, but there are actually lots of little sculpted details that make up for the plainness of it.

Another great thing about Wreckage is his range of motion. It is almost absolutely perfect. The only problem is that his hip articulation consists of only a few millimeters of side to side twisting motion. Also, sometimes the plates on his shoulders get in the way a little, but that isn't much of a problem. One thing that Wreckage has is an auto-transform feature that works when you push the cannon from his vehicle mode into his back. It finishes the transformation into robot mode and pushes the cannon on his chest out. One small problem with this is that when Wreckage is in robot mode, he will start to auto-transform in reverse if you are not careful. This only happens when moving his arms because there's no locking mechanism on the auto transform to stop him from transforming back

Wreckage only comes with two items. Both of them are swords that resemble switch-bladed knifes. When the swords are folded up they resemble guns. There are multiple options on where to place these swords. He can either hold them in his hands, or he can have them attached to his forearms. Another option is to put them into their "holsters." There are two holster-like compartments when Wreckage is in robot mode on either side of his hips. These same compartments will hold the folded up swords when he is in vehicle mode as well, although the instructions aren't very clear on any of this. The instructions show the swords in the compartments in vehicle mode, but do not say that you can put them in there when Wreckage is in robot mode. There was also some difficulty in getting the vehicle to lock into place after transforming it when the swords were kept in the holsters.

I feel that Wreckage is one of the better Transformers ever, and perhaps the best one out of this wave. I would definitely recommend buying him.