Sometimes you buy something just to fill an apehole.
There aren’t a lot of ape toys out there. NECA did a modern Planet of the Apes line a while ago, but outside of that, unless I’m missing something, you just don’t get a good ape all that often. So when preorders went up for Mezco’s King Kong of Skull Island figure went up, I went ahead and preordered it, because it looked like a pretty decent ape figure.
As it turns out, it’s not a bad figure at all, just a little limited in certain areas.
I have to admit up front that I haven’t seen the recent King Kong movie. I don’t have anything against it, but there’s only so much time for all the movies out there, and I’ve already seen the original King King and the 70s remake, plus a few where he fought Godzilla, so I kind felt like I had already seen the movie. I skipped the Peter Jackson movie from year ago for the same reason.
But that’s beside the point. What we have here is a 7 inch ape, and since the vast majority of my collection lingers in that general area, a 7 inch ape will do nicely. And it is a great looking figure. The sculpting is excellent, and it has a nice, realistic feel to it. It nails the ape proportions, with the longer arms and the stubbier legs, and just overall makes a great looking figure. It’s got some scratches on the chest to give him a “lived-in” feel. King Kong doesn’t get along with anybody.
I took a gamble on the articulation of the figure. It looked like it featured a decent amount of articulation, but a figure like this can often have the requisite articulation points but be so stunted in the utilization of them that it might as well not have them at all. Thankfully, for the most part the articulation does an adequate enough job for what’s there. That said, there are areas that could be better.
The thing I do understand is that there is an audience out there that doesn’t want too much articulation to “break up the sculpt.” They are going to be putting King Kong on a shelf and want it to look good. Which is fine. So with something like this, you’re not going to be getting double joints. Which I can begrudgingly say is fine, even though there is definitely a part of me wants a hyper-articulated King Kong.
The head has a double ball joint, and gets a good range. The head does tend to pop off too easily on mine when I moved his head around, so I had to remember to push in on his head while turning it so the head wouldn’t come loose. There’s a decent amount of side to side, and a very nice up and down. Kong comes with two heads: passive and growling. Obviously, they swap on and off easily. The sculpting on both is excellent, and the paint is pretty great as well, with very minimal noticeable paint slop. I love the calm head because it loks like he’s got something going on in his brain. He’s studying the world around him. Judging it, even. Oh yeah, King Kong is judging you.
The angry head is full on batshit nuts, and since this is intended to be a gigantic gorilla, not something you want to see in real life. Again, the sculpting in the mouth is excellent, and the paint inside the mouth has a glossy moistness. Gotta love an angry ape.
The range of motion in the shoulders and elbows is nice. He gets a full arm spread, and he gets about 90 degrees out of the elbows, which are swivel/hinge style. The wrists are ball-jointed and decent enough, though a little restricted by the fur. He comes with a pair of fists, a pair of open hands and one specific grab hand for one of his accessories.
His torso get a decent crunch and rotates fully. It’s from the hips down where the articulation is slightly more limited.
The hips are upward-plugged ball joints, and it took some loosening up before they started to do what I told them to do. They were REALLY tight at first, but with some effort they began to move a lot better, and I was able to get slightly deeper bends out of them. You’re still not going to get a ton of motion out of them, but they do loosen up if you keep working at them.
The knees are the most problematic, with only a minor bend to them. Once the hips are freed you can get him into some decent crouching poses, but the top half is definitely going to be more limited than the bottom. I was finally able to get both feet and knuckles on the surface at once, but a little more knee bend would have made the pose look more realistic.
The ankles seem to be ball-jointed and can be moved adequately for stability.
I was slightly disappointed initially, but once the joints warmed up and started moving a little better the disappointment melted away, and I was very pleased with the big ape.
Outside of the two heads and the multiple hand options, Kong comes with a pair of shackles that can snap on and off of his wrists, making it look like he just escaped captivity. Escaping captivity is a thing that King Kong does, because it seems like every other Tuesday somebody wants to put his big ass in a show and sell tickets. Basically it sucks to be King Kong.
The other accessory is your standard “damsel in distress” that fits nicely into the gripping hand. The scale looks about right to his humongousness, and she’s got the appropriate billowing hair and dress that every good damsel in distress must have. She’s slightly rubbery, presumably so you won’t snap off a leg trying to get her into Kong’s hands.
I’m pretty pleased with this purchase. I didn’t buy it so much for the King Kongness of it as I did for an articulated ape to fight random characters, and as such he does the job.
