Review – Hot Toys 12″ Rambo First Blood

One influential aspect of the Rambo movies was that it never failed to inspire me to workout after watching them. You got to see Sylvester Stallone in the movie to believe how chiseled his body was. And it was not the bulky physique bodybuilders had. It was lean and it left no doubt that Rambo could be as swift and flexible as any athlete. And who could forget his impossibly big lats in Rambo III!

The Rambo movies also got my brother and I interested in survival knives. First Blood had showcased Rambo’s knife to possess many goodies hidded in its hollow hilt. Knives had taken a different purpose than just being a sharp blade. I remembered visiting those camping stores frequently to ogle at combat knives such as the Rambo blades, Jungle King and Karbar. Then there were the jack knives, butterfly knives and diving knives.

At a certain point, I nearly wanted to get the Karbar. But I ended up getting a diving blade called El Tiburon. It meant shark in Spanish I believe. I guess I wanted a serrated blade like what Rambo had! Maybe I should dig up that blade again. Our ‘test’ for blade sharpness then was to slice paper holding it up with one swift motion. I have a feeling this was influenced by one of the Rambo movies as well!

Enough reminicensce, onto the review!

Bottomline:

A good sculpt prevent this figure from becoming just a mercenary in denim. While it is fitting for the use of a muscular body, it does restrict articulation of the body. As such it allows for limited poses. It may be a little bare in accessories, but it is not enough reason to bypass this figure if you want a Rambo figure in your collection. Pick this figure up if you had missed out on the Rambo III version!

What’s good:

• Good Stallone sculpt with those famous drooping eyes and crooked lips.
• Good details on the muscular body. Fitting use of the muscular body.
• Good implementation of the bandanna on Rambo’s forehead.
• Inclusion of signature M60 machine gun.
• Stable figure.

What could be better:

• Limited articulation due to muscular body.
• No proper hand for securely grasping of the knife hilt.
• Hair sculpt could be more accurate.
• Little accessories.

Review Details

Packaging

Collector friendly packaging from Hot Toys. No knife is needed to slit any adhesive tapes. The art on box sleeve is from the original First Blood movie poster. It gives the this Rambo figure that retro movie significance.

Headsculpt/Resemblance

The sculpting of the face on this figure is commendable. It does resemble Sylvester Stallone with his signature drooping eyelids and crooked lips. The right eyebrow makes the figure look angry when viewing from the right side. It’s a good expression for posing Rambo in that single arm operation of the M60 machine gun! I find the resemblance strongest when looking into the front of the face.

Hot Toys has improvised on how to implement Rambo’s bandanna. The part of the bandanna on the forehead is part of the headsculpt – plastic. But the ends of the bandanna is cloth that is neatly secure to the figure’s head via a believable knot. I’m not complaining because it allows for the ends of the bandanna to appear to be held in the air by wind. It makes for great photography! In this way, they do not need to deal with the hair issue similarly faced by Sideshow’s Aragorn. Good improvisation!

If something seems off for this Rambo sculpt, it would be the hair. Rambo’s hair in First Blood was rather thick and big. In fact, his ears were hardly noticeable. Unless this Hot Toys sculpt was meant for a wet hair day, a little more hair on the sides would had been better. This hair sculpt is a little too neat for me.

Quality of Product

Looking at the figure, what stands out are the muscle details on the Hot Toys Rambo. Those veins on the biceps and the muscle definition on the shoulders make the strain of straddling the M60 machine gun single-handedly look real. All this is possible by the use of the muscular body!

However, using a muscular body also means that articulation is restricted. There is hardly any shoulder articulation. Main articulation for the arms is at the elbows. While this is not a fault of the figure, I do hope that 12” muscular bodies can someday see more realistic articulation. Currently, it is an issue of trade-off between looks and posing ability. However, I still prefer the muscular body for figures going sleeveless as those articulation lines at the joints would be unsightly.

Rambo’s clothes are well tailored to fit the body. The sleeveless tee is tight fitting and it betrays Rambo’s abs. Rather realistic considering Sylvester Stallone was probably in the best shape of his life while being Rambo. The denim jeans looked like a boot-cut! It looked a little too baggy but I could not confirm the accuracy of it as I had not seen the film for years. Maybe I will pick up the DVD again…

A gripe I have is the lack of a hand that is able to grasp the knife hilt securely. Hot Toys Rambo comes with a trigger hand and a general holding hand. However, the later is incapable of holding the knife which falls out of it too easily. I believe it was meant to hold those ammo belts. But why would anyone do that? It is the trigger hand that allows for some secure knife wielding but it looked weird with the index finger stick out.

Stability

Hot Toys Rambo First Blood is actually a stable figure. Any instability encountered while attempting different poses can be attributed to the rigid muscular body. But when you have it standing and firing that M60 machine gun, it stands rather solidly. I’ve seen figures doing much worse in this department. Hot Toys Rambo did not discomfort me in this area.

Accessories

This figure is rather short in terms of accessories. There is the survival knife, the M60 machine gun and 3 ammo belts. Of course the display stand is included as usual. With the ammo belts being identical, it is really 3 unique accessory. My visual input screamed ‘bare’ when I pulled out the plastic tray the figure was resting in!

 

While I am aware that Rambo in First Blood had only his survival knife when he had to retreat into the forest, I could not help but hope for a better accessory offering here for the price of this figure. Maybe his Nam jacket could had been thrown in with that red tee seen at the start of the movie. But I guess most will remember Rambo in First Blood firing the M60.

Speaking about the M60, if one finds this machine gun a little too short, it is because this Hot Toys version is modelled after the shorty M60. This version does not come with the bi-pod which would usually had been attached under a longer barrel. I cannot remember if Rambo had used this version of the M60 in First Blood. Hot Toys’ take on this machine gun includes the gun sight, a handle and an ammo cover that can be opened to ‘feed’ in the ammo belt. It is the same weapon found on Hot Toys’ Vietnam SEAL M60 Shorty Machine Gunner figure.

First Blood was also the movie credited with the surge in popularity of hollow handle survival knives. Audiences then were introduced to a knife that had many goodies stored within its handle. Many would remember the end of the handle could be unscrewed to reveal a handy compass. It later became the first of 3 knives used in the Rambo trilogy with each looking significantly different. The knife included with Hot Toys Rambo is modelled accurately after the first knife. It has the signature serrated and grey-coloured blade. The knife fits securely into the leather sheath although the securing strap seemed a tad too large.

I have no complains for the ammo belts except that the securing mechanism for linking the ends of the belt to form a loop was too simplistic and weak. There are 2 holes on one end of the ammo belt that allow 2 plastic ‘pins’ on the other end to fit in. The pins are small and short and does not link both ends firmly. However when linked, you can hardly tell where the belt was joined. Only the alignment of the bullets betray its location.