Review: NECA Robocop with Spring-loaded holster
NECA continues to roll out product from some of the most beloved films of the 1980’s, covering pretty much every different Predator you could imagine alongside most of the more recognizable Gremlins. One license they’ve been running with has been Robocop where they’ve rendered the titular character in a variety of ways.
This is the fourth Robocop released by NECA, all using the same basic mold. The others are last year’s standard edition, which was followed by a Toys R Us exclusive “Night Fighter” repaint that glows in the dark, and then a battle-damaged version that splits the case assortment with our friend here. What makes this one special is the inclusion of something no other Robocop figure has managed: an accurate opening holster for his gun.
The Figma I reviewed awhile back had alternate parts to replicate the holster but this is the first time any Robocop has included an opening one that’s seamlessly part of the figure.
The holster looks spectacular and works pretty well. It can be a pain to fit the gun in there, since the space is pretty small, but with enough effort you can hang it on the peg.
It really was a struggle, even with my thin fingers, but the holster’s very sturdy and doesn’t seem like it’ll break short of an epic shelf-dive.
With it closed, you can’t even tell if anything’s in the holster. The “break” where the parts of his leg open are pretty much invisible and I have to compliment NECA on something that looks so good but functions so simply. To close the holster, you just push on the front half; the side part will fold in on it’s own, and once snapped shut you only have to press a button on the back of Robocop’s leg to spring it back open. The side half of the holster does rest on a small joint, but it automatically moves in whichever way the current action needs it to. Sliding the Auto-9 in there is always going to be a negotiation with your patience but once you fit the barrel through the small gap, it’s a bit easier to clip the trigger onto the little nub.
Since this figure shares the same basic body as the other three releases, if you own any of them you already have a good idea of what to expect from this version. The same amount of detail in his armored parts is there, right down to the separated rings on his shoulders, the panel on his chest, and the tiny ring on his right thigh. You can even see both of his OCP serial numbers, on the side of his head and front of his left thigh, with complete clarity. I do wish they’d sculpted his left hand in less of an open pose but it makes sense according the character: he only uses an economy of motion, and when wielding the gun with only one hand, he’s not likely to even make a fist with the other.
All those tiny details are brought out with a slight wash to compliment the primarily silver color scheme. The shiny silver they chose helps Robocop really catch the light of whatever surface you put him on too; I have him on the desk right now as I type this and he’s picking up the tan color of the wood. There’s also more than a hint of blue in the figure but, in a nice touch, the light you have him in will determine how much you see it. The black parts of his armor have their own gloss, different from the silver bits, and the whole figure just looks amazing. You should keep an eye out for some slop; there’s at least one spot on mine where the black bleeds over onto the silver, on the spot where his left “glove” connects.
You can even see Peter Weller in the limited amount of the exposed face, making this a top flight figure where the aesthetics are concerned. I really can’t complain about the sculpt and with a careful eye, you can find one with gorgeous looking paint. The only spots to watch are the black paint around his exposed face, the silver on the insides of the shoulder joints and, of course, the gloves where they connect to the rest of his arms. I had a sample of one to draw from, and with my often terrible luck I still managed to pick one that was 95% a winner.
The figure doesn’t do quite as well with articulation but that’s hardly NECA’s fault. The design doesn’t easily lend itself to super articulation and this Robocop is more than capable of striking all the poses you remember from the movie. The exact breakdown is:
– Ball-jointed neck
– Ball-jointed shoulders and hips
– Ball-jointed torso
– Swivel waist and wrists
– Hinge elbows, knees, and ankles
Of special note are the neck, torso and ankle joints as all three function extremely well, helping to add a lot of character to poses. But despite the good number of joints, Robocop isn’t hugely posable; in fact, his elbows don’t even completely bend at 45 degrees, stopping somewhere around the 35 mark. That’s the most drastic example in the figure but regardless, he’s not going to be pulling off any convincingly deep stances that require him to crouch or anything. That’s in spite of the pretty good range of leg movement too.
Accessories are relatively light as well: Robocop only has his quickly recognizable Auto-9 pistol and a swappable hand with the data spike emerging from his folded down fingers. The gun looks great, with great detail for the light construction, and fits perfectly inside the holster (with some finangling) while looking sharp in the standard right hand. That same right hand pops off pretty easily to allow for the alternate one, a nice touch though I’ll admit it’ll see relatively little use when the main event here is the opening holster.
So how does the figure compare to the Figma, the other recent Robocop release? The differences are immediate but what qualifies one as better than the other is going to be solely determined by personal taste. The NECA figure is larger and that lets a lot of the details be a bit deeper, with things like the shoulder rings being more pronounced than they are on the Figma one. The action feature is something that the Max Factory Figma is just too small to replicate, so the fun of popping open and shutting the holster is replaced by the terrifying (to me anyway) process of removing his leg panel to use the alternate parts. The likeness to Weller is stronger on the NECA version, with the Figma only offering a pretty basic portrait underneath the helmet while his 7-inch counterpart manages to include a sculpted nose hidden by the helmet.
NECA’s also got Max Factory beat out on price. I picked up their Robocop for a cool $6 and change at FYE thanks to a coupon and Jaysun’s membership card, but he retailed there at $17.99. That seems to be the standard, with most online retailers carrying him within a dollar or so of that price tag. Even Toys R Us, the most accessible outlet for NECA stuff at regular retail, has the figure for $14.99 on their website. Max Factory’s Robocop runs about $50 in most places, though I’ll note that Big Bad Toy Store has him on clearance for $38 right now.
Where Max Factory trumps NECA is in the articulation and accessories. The Figma Robocop is capable of all manner of zany poses and the various optional hands allow for more variety than the alternately gun-firing and data spike choices given to the larger figure. Max Factory even has a data spike for their version and two alternate trigger fingers! Combined with the “damaged” alternate helmet and the holster attachment, the Max Factory version embodies most features that the different NECA versions have had in one figure.
Plus, while the details on the NECA figure are more easily visible, it doesn’t mean that the many mechanical aspects of the suit are missing from the Figma. You can see above that the OCP serial number is obviously visible on both. Also, I’d say the paint on the figures is about even, though the blue on the Figma is a bit more pronounced and there’s no slop that I’ve seen from all the ones I’ve seen.
Really, it comes down to if you prefer a larger scale, one that fits in with the multitude of Predators, Aliens, Terminators, Freddy Krugers, Gordon Freemans and what have you that NECA produces, combined with readily recognizable details and a low price, vs. high articulation with a greater range of motion, optional parts and an overall more complete package. I personally prefer the Figma despite the softer likeness and lack of action feature, but I blame that entirely on loving articulation. The fact that he can hang with some other Figmas and Revoltechs, including the Revoltech Xenomorph I have, doesn’t hurt either. If you want to see a full review, I made did one back in the summer, one where I better show off how much the Figma can move.
Still, NECA has done a pretty bang-up job with this figure and I definitely don’t mind having two of him especially since the company keeps pursuing licenses from other movies I love and making the figures from them in a similar scale. The spring-loaded holster is the main feature this figure has over his contemporaries and they pulled it off with aplomb. Right now the standard Robocop figure is absent from store shelves but since this version is identical on top of having a new action feature, I actually see the original release becoming a little less desirable in the eyes of those lacking him and a little frustrating for those that do. I can’t fault NECA for refreshing a popular figure in a really interesting way, though I hope the success of the four Robocops they’ve done leads to an ED-209 at some point.
If you’re curious about what other people thought of this figure, or the other three which are basically the same thing give or take a few features, you can read reviews all over the internet! Pixel Dan has a video review of this version over on his site, Jon Brown takes a look at the standard release over at Infinite Hollywood, while Poe Ghostal takes the original release and puts it next to the old McFarlane Movie Maniacs edition over at PGPOA. As you can see, the impressions of the NECA mold vary and even I’ll admit that I favor the Figma slightly more because of the articulation. Still, NECA has done a great job and the figure does everything you see Robocop actually do in the first movie that’s practical for a toy. If you just want that, then you really can’t go wrong with seeking this version out, though I’ll say that whichever company produces an ED-209 first will gain a huge advantage over the other…
Planned Banter 