Review of Princess Bride Series One Action Figures
Inigo Montoya, Black Pirate Roberts, Buttercup,
And Fezzik

Introduction

When people do those "what's your favorite X" questions, I'm always hesitant to respond. Oh, I'll give you my top ten favorite horror movies, or top ten greatest sitcoms, but the number one? Best of all? That's always hard for me to hone in on, to pick the one above all others when there are so many potential winners.

Except when it comes to my all time favorite movie. You'd think that would be even more impossible - crossing all genres? All styles? All periods? How can you possible come up with just one? And yet it's easy, because there's only one movie that combines romance and action and comedy and does it with the perfect cast, the perfect direction, the perfect script. And that of course is The Princess Bride.

Sadly, collectors have had few items to add to their displays based on this license. NECA took a swing at it a long time ago, and missed terribly. Qmx did a fantastic job with their 1/6 Westley/Dread Pirate Roberts, and then they utterly dropped the ball and gave us no one else. Now McFarlane has picked up the license, and right out of the gate have out done every one else in the breadth of characters.

Series one includes Roberts of course, along with Inigo Montoya, Buttercup, and the huge Fezzik. They've already announced a second wave, with variants of these four as well as a new Vizzini figure.

You can pick up the four smaller - 7" scale - figures for around $25, depending on the retailer, but the huge Fezzik will run you closer to $40.

Packaging - **1/2
Because McFarlane's newer figures, Hasbro's Marvel Legends and Star Wars Black, and NECA's Ultimate figures are all 'mass market' - you can pick them up at your local big box retailer - they tend to get compared. One area where McFarlane drops the ball is on packaging. While the others are very collector friendly, allowing you to remove the figure and accessories without any serious damage to the box or trays, McFarlane is still in old school mode. You'll have to cut a fair share of ties, and the small display stand is heat sealed to the cardboard tray, requiring damage to remove it.

Sculpting - ***
As I mentioned, these figures are in a 7" scale. Westley and Montoya are right about at the 7" mark, while Buttercup is closer to 6 1/2", and Fezzik is slightly over 9".

I suspect that underneath the paint - which we'll get to in a minute - there's actually some very good sculpts. Buttercup is particularly attractive, with nice detail work in the hair and a relatively close resemblance. The upper half of the dress is sculpted, with lots of tiny texture, but the lower half is cloth. In the package I didn't love the way it looked, but once I had her out and posed on the shelf, I was much happier with the combination.

Inigo is also a good likeness, without as many paint issues to cover it up. The hair is pretty chunky though, without much detail in the strands. The proportions are decent overall, and like Buttercup, the sculpted textures on the costume look great.

The Dread Pirate Roberts gets hit hard by some nasty paint work, but ignoring that the face still looks slightly smooshed, and oddly undersized. The textures and detail work on the costume are great again, but this didn't translate to the mask and rag on his head, which are almost completely smooth.

The huge Fezzik has the most obnoxious paint work, making it all the harder to see the likeness, but as I said, I think it's there, just hiding. The hair has a hat-like appearance, and the face is almost cartoonish or caricaturish. As with the other three, the work from the neck down is really his best feature in this category.

Paint - Buttercup, Montoya ***; Fezzik, Roberts *1/2
This is the area that really hurts at least two of the four figures.

Buttercup is nicely done, with clean operations and some nice details. My biggest gripe is her side eye, an expression that McFarlane has over used with some of their more recent lines. It's not a bad idea with certain characters, but they have been using it too broadly, and on characters where it makes no sense - like Buttercup.

Inigo has solid B work all around. Again he has the side eyes, but it's less of an issue with his character. Still, getting him to look straight down his outstretched sword would be nice, and is impossible with this design. There's not a ton of detail work on his costume, but the colors are generally realistic and consistent.

Ah, then we get to Westley. I'm not sure what's going on with his five o'clock shadow, but it's a mess. Not only does it not look in character, the application is sloppy and off putting. Again, he has those damn side eyes.

Perhaps the only one where the side eyes are not any sort of real issue is Fezzik. And yet, something else has gone terrible wrong with his face. They were trying to give him a five o'clock shadow and darker areas around his eyes, which are at least in character and appropriate. Somehow, they turned him into a raccoon with a mud beard. It's horrendous.

Articulation - Roberts, Montoya ***1/2; Fezzik ***; Buttercup **1/2
There's plenty of articulation on these figures, although some of it is more useful than others.

Buttercup has a ball jointed neck, but the long sculpted hair isn't going to let you do much. The hinge shoulders, double jointed elbows, and hinge wrists can allow for some reasonable arm poses, although the sculpted hands have nothing to hold, and she could use a cut joint for a bit of arm rotation. Under the cloth skirt - in sculpted paints and boots - are hinge hips, pin knees, and pin ankles with some rocker movement, but Buttercup isn't really a character to take much more than a simple standing pose.

Fezzik has some restrictions too, mostly due to the chunky size. The hair restricts the neck a bit, and the arms are only single pin elbows with no sort of cut joint to give them inward and outward movement from the torso. The hips have a bit of movement under the long sculpted shirt, and the knees and ankles are chunky and thick. You can get him in a few good stances, but nothing particularly exciting.

Then we get to Westley and Inigo. They went all in with these two, with ball jointed necks, rotating hinge shoulders, cut biceps, double or single pin elbows, hinge hips, double pin knees, and rotating hinge ankles with some rocker movement.

Inigo wins this category, thanks to the double pin elbows and the less bulky arms. The puffy shirt on Westley means the elbows are pretty restricted, but you can get good fencing poses out of both of them.

Accessories - Fezzik **1/2; Montoya, Roberts **; Buttercup *1/2
Sadly, accessories are where they all fall off.

Buttercup is the worst. Her only extra is the small, black, round display stand with a foot peg. No markings, no logo.

Inigo and Wesley both have this stand as well, and each have their sword. The sculpts and paint work is bare bones, and the blades are very thin and wobbly.

Fezzik does the best, and it's still pretty pathetic. There's the black stand, which is ridiculously small for such a large figure, a rock for head bashing, and a peanut. He can hold the two latter items in his one sculpted gripping hand, with a bit of creativity.