There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.
Oh man, the day is finally here. I finally have a 1/12th scale Alex DeLarge figure. I have wanted an action figure based on Stanley Kubrick’s ode to teenage nihilism for quite a while now, but had never seriously considered it to be a possibility. But then when MAFEX made action figures from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, I hoped that the possibility for more of Kubrick’s movies to get a similar treatment. Lo and behold, Alex from A Clockkork Orange was announced, and it was no longer a question, but an inevitability.
Oddly enough, after years and years of nothing, Alex will be on the receiving end of not one, but two action figures, one from MAFEX and another in Mezco’s One :12 Collective line. Something something raining and pouring, eh?
Stanley Kubrick was the perfect director to tackle Anthony Burgess’s novel. A chilly, cerebral director, Kubrick was a pull-no-punches type that could be counted on to deliver every bit of the ultraviolence that would be necessary to tell the story. With a perfectly cast Malcom McDowell to bring Alex to life, the movie has been an oft-quoted pop culture staple since it scandalized theaters in 1971. It’s has been many years since I first watched it, and I’ve watched it several times since then, never thinking I’d actually get a figure. I thought I’d have to make do with Funko’s Pop! Vinyl figures.
I think we’re at a point where we don’t have to make assurances about MAFEX’s quality control anymore. With several releases that have been issue-free, it looks like the bugs have finally been fixed and they can stand shoulder to shoulder with the other import figures delivering great, quirky figures.
Alex is a solidly sculpted figure, with a great, stark execution. Let’s take a top down look at him and see how he shapes up.
Alex’s heads
Alex comes with three heads, and two variations of his bowler. The heads are: serious, grinning and tooth bearing. The tooth bearing head is probably my least favorite of the three. It’s not terrible, but I’ve always found that the particular expression it’s trying to get across always looks weird in an action figure. It loses a bit of the likeness in some ways, and it just doesn’t quite look “right.”
The other two work very well. I like the more serious face the most, because the touch of malevolence works for an all-around version of Alex.
The hats—one regular and one with dildo mask–are swappable among all three heads. The hats fit on snugly. Unfortunately, there is no regular head that you can display with the hat off, but he looks more complete with the hat on at all times anyway.
The heads snap on and stay on. The two heads that didn’t come pre-attached to the head are a bit tight to get on, but none of them come off easily once they’re on.
His neck is ball-jointed at both ends. He can’t tilt his head back too far because of the hair sculpt.
Alex’s torso
Alex has a ball-jointed torso. His suspenders and codpiece are all one piece and are made of a flexible material so his mobility isn’t too hampered, although he probably can’t crouch forward as much as he would be able to without the suspenders. As it is, he still can achieve a considerable range.
Alex’s arms
Alex features butterfly-joints at his shoulders coupled with a ball joint and a disc joint and finally a peg that goes into his arm. There is no bicep swivel, but with artful twisting you get all the necessary articulation that you need from what is there. Essentially, you get “human” levels of posing, while the sculpt itself is maintained. Initially it does take a little bit of fiddling to get it to go the way you want, but that gets easier over time.
He has double jointed elbows with a good range, and ball-jointed wrists.
Alex’s hands
Alex comes with four sets of hands: fists, open, gripping and semi-open. The gripping hands work well with his cane and knife, and the semi-open hands are mainly intended to hold his glass of milk-plus. All of the hands swap on and off easily, and are secure once attached.
Alex’s hips
Alex features drop down hips combined with ball-joints. There is a concealed swivel joint that allows you to turn his leg slightly, but not enough if you wanted to cross his legs. With the drop-down feature you can get him into a pretty good crouch, as the crotch-piece (and codpiece) is flexible. Mine is fairly tight, so there’s a squeaky/ratchety sound. I haven’t decided if I want to put some oil in there to loosen them up some or leave it the way it is. Once the leg is in place it’s not moving at all on its own, so I might just leave it for stability.
Alex’s legs
Alex has single-jointed knees with about 90 degrees of bend. The ankles appear to be ball-jointed with a workable range, nothing too extreme. They give enogh twist for most regular poses, but he won’t be crouching deeply with them.
Overall, while it took some fiddling initially, I didn’t have much of an issue getting him to do most of what I wanted him to do.
Alex’s accessories
Other than his pair of bowlers, Alex comes with a cane that he holds very tightly in either of his gripping hands, a separated knife and cane that he can hold tightly in both hands as if he just pulled the knife from the cane. The two pieces are not made so they can be reattached. I think the knife blade would have been too thin and to fragile. Finally, he comes with a glass of milk-plus that he can hold in either respective wider-gripped hand. It’s tall and slim and appears to have milk in it.
Alex scratches a major itch that I’ve had for quite a while. As a big Kubrick fan and a big Clockwork Orange fan, Getting this figure has knocked a major want off of my cinematic figure list. It’s going to be hard not to grab a couple more just to pop on some extra heads and give him some droogs to lead around, but I think I’ll be satisfied with just the one.
You can order him at Big Bad Toy Store
