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REVIEW: Hot Toys Disney's Maleficent - MALEFICENT (MMS247)
A Fine Looking Figure of Angelina Jolie's (Not So) Evil Character...
Review and Photography by David Yeh
One of Disney’s biggest hits from last year was actually a film that was a complete dud to me. Maleficent had all the makings of greatness, with a perfect cast and one of Walt Disney’s most iconic animated villains. Even after decades of great animated features, no other villain has gotten close to the villainy that is Maleficent. How the film managed to ruin the character, even with Angelina Jolie turning in solid work, is baffling, but it is what it is. Hot Toys, in turn, has given us a sixth scale figure that looks as evil as she should be so you collectors at home can keep her wicked, rather than the protective baby sitter she became. Hopefully the sequel will give us the Maleficent we want.
Maleficent is still available for purchase at most online stores and will bring you back $230. What all of this includes is an authentic Maleficent figure, display stand, and a few other accessories for your display.
The packaging for Maleficent is quite elegant, but rather subtle. A black box with thorns and branches taking over. Underneath is the standard plastic tray with figure and accessories. Things can be taken out and placed back.
The sculpt if a very accurate likeness of Angelina Jolie in her horned headdress. Comparing her look with scenes from the film, I think they did the best that could possibly be done. The paintwork on the head is clean and more than acceptable. While I’ve seen some amazing customs online, you won’t look into this wishing there was more to it. At least that wasn’t the first thing I noticed.
The other area of strong sculpting are her boots, very well hidden underneath her gown. However, in an unfortunate circumstance, Maleficent really cannot stand on her own. The boots are too precarious for her to balance on her own so I recommend using the provided display stand when you can.
Maleficent is fully articulated but since she’s a character of grace, you won’t need to put her in that many poses to make a scene. Her arms and elbows do have a great range of motion and really is all you should use.
There are five interchangeable palms with Maleficent, which is a lot fewer than the standard Hot Toys figure where you get five pairs, but each hand is specifically designed for a certain look or pose. You get one left palm for holding her staff, one relaxed right palm, one pointing left palm, and one pair of open palms.
The trickiest thing about swapping palms on Maleficent is that her costume has a little hook that goes over her middle finger to complete the look. Putting that on and removing it is quite the chore. After a few hand swaps, I decided to pick the hands I wanted to display and left it at that.
Also included is her long staff, her raven companion, figure stand, and two translucent green flames. There’s one green flame for each hand and it’s a very cool looking accessory. Each flame is designated for a specific hand, be it left or right, so make sure you find the right one. The raven has the option of sitting on Maleficent’s staff or not, which is a fun option.
The black gown is tricky as her added train requires some attaching. The buttons used to attach the train are quite possibly the cheapest quality making it extremely difficult to attach. To this day, the center clasp on mine refuses to button so I’m just leaving it alone. It took me about an hour of struggling to get all of the snaps together and it still didn’t go on right.
Overall, Maleficent is a fine looking release from Hot Toys, but there’s too much difficulty to really enjoy or appreciate the work put into the figure. Not being able to stand on her own and the incredibly cheap snaps for the train really knock this one down a few, but when all is said and done, it really is a nice looking figure. Just make sure you keep that display stand handy.
Review and Photography by David Yeh
Review Sample Courtesy of Hot Toys
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