Ain't nothing more satisfying than to finally get that piece of collectible taken off a particular movie that practically defined and shaped your childhood. Yes, my Hot Toys Batman Returns: Batman & Bruce Wayne Deluxe set has finally arrived! Batman Returns together with Batman ('89) and Batman Forever (Kilmer Bats!) are my favourite Bat-flims of all time. My son agrees with me too. These films even blow Nolan's Bale-Bats flicks out of the water. I dunno, something about the classic feel of Batman which I find lacking in Nolan's films. They were good, but not good enough as compared to Burton's two films and Schumacher's 'Forever film in my books. Anyway, to each his own.
Today I'm just gonna walk you through as I unbox the Deluxe action figure set. When I say unbox it simply means I'm just gonna fiddle with it without actually going into detail. That's gonna wait until later. But for now let us quickly see what goodness comes with the deluxe set.
I love the packaging art. It depicts the actual figures that we're gonna get inside and not movie stills from the...err...movie. I believe the stand-alone Batman-only figure set has Batman staring straight at you as opposed to this one where you get to see both Bats and Bruce Wayne looking in different directions against a backdrop of Gotham city.
You get to read all sorts of information as you make your way through the packaging layers. Lotsa stuff and info on the Hot Toys team that had proudly produced the action figure for you. The usual stuff.
Behold! As soon as you remove the protective plastic cover, you'd be immediately presented with a breathtaking view.....
Taking its cue from the DX-09 '89 Batman figure set, this one comes with 3 interchangeable mouth piece too and the extra two were placed at faux Batman heads just to keep the in place. Talking about 'DX', I think it's kinda funny that this box set isn't one despite it coming with a Bruce Wayne figure. I think this is Hot Toys' ploy to give us even more variations of Keaton Bats in the future. Doncha' think? Or we might completely wrongly predict stuff and this might be your only chance to own a Batman Returns figure at retail price?
Whatever it is I'm not gonna wait to find out.
We get a smorgasbord of extra hands, both for Bats and Bruce Wayne.
And the accessories.....don't even get me started on them! You get the grappler/zipline gun, remote batarang, the remote control for his Batmobile and some other stuff that I can't really recall....hahah. Time to whip out that blu-ray again.
One thing I like about the inclusion of the PERS function is that the opening is not really noticeable as we've seen on the first Batman '89. I don't have that figure but I have seen those up close to tell you that Hot Toys has improved that aspect of the figure. To control the eyeballs you'd have to use the simple contraption as picture below as the lever sticks are a bit out of reach especially if you have fully grown man-fingers.
Take really good care of Batman's ears and the spikes on both his gauntlets! I have read reviews from those who accidently broken these things off especially the gauntlet spikes. And they are mighty sharp too so don't get yourselves poked! Real hazard these two things are!
The inclusion of the torn off cowl and neck/chest piece is probably the most interesting piece of accessory in this deluxe set! Cool...now I can recreate that end scene ("We're the same split, right in the center"/"Bruce Wayne...why are you dressed up like Batman?" scene)...but I need Catwoman/Selina Kyle and a Christopher Walken sixth scale figures!
I love the PERS function! Obviously the headsculpt (or half-sculpt...whichever way you look at it) looks way more like Michael Keaton as compared to the '89 version here. I still haven't gotten around to change his lower facial expressions yet. Maybe later.
To wrap up my brief review today, let's take a look at Bruce Wayne's sculpt. Hot Toys have their hits and misses through out the years and I kinda agree with many when they say that the headsculpt doesn't really scream 100% Michael Keaton. It's 90-95% percent there but I don't agree with some that say that this one looks a tad bit like Mark Ruffallo. This is Michael Keaton...with a twist of Bruce Willis! Haha.
Stay tuned for more Hot Toys Batman Returns real soon!
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