Hot Toys MMS Silk Spectre II- Review

Greetings heroes/citizen. Whoa! It’s getting very dusty in the Base. I got so limited time to update the Base lately, sorry about that. I’ll do my best to update the Base daily now. There are tonnes of great announcements by manufacturers that I missed posting in the Base. Anyway, today I’ll do a review, since the last review I did was months ago :lol: 

This time I’m back with another Hot Toys action figure,  it’s Movie Masterpiece 102  Silk Spectre II. Hot Toys managed to score high ratings for Machiko and Sheva before. They actually have done several female characters after Machiko, but personally I think that Sheva and Machiko is the best female figures they’ve done. Will Silk Spectre II stands at par (at least in my opinion) with those two figures? Let’s play.

Before I start the review, this action figure hits retail on Dec of 2009 and the suggested retail price for this range from $130 to $150 depending on where  you purchase it. This is the second figure for the Watchmen movie after The Comedian by Hot Toys.

The box is a standard cardboard box  with a very nice graphics. It’s a simple deco but looks attractive. Hot Toys definitely borrows the color palette right from the movie posters. They use both the actual pictures of Silk Spectre II (from movie) and the Hot Toys’ version on the box.  Instead of the regular window box with flap cover this time the box have no flap only a slide in cover. I don’t like it much because the box is not very sturdy without a hard flap cover to support it. It makes you feel that the box is made of a thinner material.

The outer sleeve is slide in and off sideways. Because there is no flap cover,her coat was put in a smaller plastic bubble and slipped on to the black background board inside the box. You have to take out the whole bubble that holding the figure and the background or if you just take the bubble out it will pull the smaller bubble holding the coat and tear the background, I didn’t know about that and almost did that. Mine doesn’t come with instruction manual ( I don’t think I need one). Overall I like the deco of the box but not very fond of how it was built.

The headsculpt was done by Lee So Young, and holding the figure myself, I think the headscupt is the best feature for this action figure. The resemblance of this headsculpt compared to the actor Malin Akerman is so close and it’s very detail with sculpted moles (yup, not just painted on). Her lips was sculpted with a little gap between the upper and lower lips, it makes the lips more 3D looks. The expression on her face is not bad, I think this expression is a default looks for most figures. So you can display her with the rest of your collection without having an angry face Silk Spectre spoiling the mood.

The hair was neatly planted on the scalp and each group of hair looks very realistic. I’m always very skeptical about figure with planted hair, they always look so untidy. But Hot Toys did not let me down this time, thank you.

The scalp part was made of a rubbery plastic so they can plant the hair. The hair is soft, the material is not stiff at all, so you can manage the hair very easily.

The costume too is not that bad actually. Sure it doesn’t look transparent like the one Malin wore in the movie. The material is flexible, but do not over stretch it.

The black parts of the suit, the material it’s very tacky. You should be careful when try to take off the gloves/hands. It tend to stick to the gloves, if too much force is used the suit will tear. The tailoring is neat but still I don’t like the way threads are clearly visible on the costume. Personally if I want to display her, I’ll display her with the coat on it hides all those “ugly” threads. The silver belt is non-removable.

A thing that I’m quite not understand is, why Hot Toys use plastic clips for each shoulder straps. It’s too fragile, mine broken while I try to fix it position.

The body is the standard female body, so there is nothing much to say about it. The only rubberized part is the torso.

I have no major problem with the articulations. Because of a large opening at the upper thigh, thanks to the original costume design. The hip joint can be moved without much problem. But on the other hand, the shoulders’ articulations were a bit limited by the costume. Be careful with the stitches at the under arms the costume tend to stretch when you move the shoulder, so are the stitches at the hip.
The elbows articulations were also limited by the costume. But a few simple movements can be made.

All joints are standard Female TT nothing special, 2 points of articulations for the neck with ball joint. The ankles are not ball jointed so it can only moves to front-back and 360, BE CAREFUL, it looks like the ankles are ball jointed. The torso have a joint in the middle, but very limited movement is possible because of the tightly fit costume.

One of the reason I like the most about Hot Toys Movie Masterpiece is that each headsculpt was hand painted by their famous painter JC Hong. It really adds a personal touch to the figure. The eyes look so alive, it have a nice deep shine, flawless. The lips have some glossy effect, not too much. But if you compare the headsculpt to the prototype color it looks like they cut a few colors for the headsculpt. But not a big problem, she still looks good anyway. Really I don’t have anything much to complain about paint job.
The costume’s colors is great too. The coat is not black/dark brown but it’s actually a copper tone.

This action figure only came with a coat,generic black display stand with Watchmen logo and Silk Spectre II name printed on, extra pegs and 2 palms. That’s it.

Personally I think this action figure is not the best product of Hot Toys, but it’s still worth to add her in collection, especially for Watchmen fans. Although Hot Toys did not shed some light for us whether they’ll release another Watchmen figure or not, I think just to be safe  fans of the Watchmen should get Silk Spectre II before she  sold out . Be careful with the costume because of it’s “fragile” material.  Lack of accessories is fairly counter by the fine points of articulations, they’re not the best either. I also can’t complain of the great paint job done by J.C Hong, it really add more realism to So Young’s works.

I give this action figure;

Packaging: 3.5/5

Design/sculpt: 4/5

Articulations: 3.5/5

Accessories: 3/5

Paint job: 5/5

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