Wall*E Deluxe Action Figures

Not having seen any advance screenings of Pixar's newest film, Wall*E, I can't say much about the plot that isn't obvious from the trailers, but the trailers show a great set of mechanical characters that I'm sure will burn up the screen. Starting with Wall*E, a trash-compacting robot left on Earth to clean up after mankind has moved to the stars.

Wall*E is a yellow cube which sprouts appendages like tracked feet, manipulator arms, and binocular eyes.

If the merchandising from Pixar's previous film Cars is any indication, the company that lands the licensing rights to Wall*E is in for a good year or several.

One such company is Thinkway Toys.

And they've hit the ground running with Wall*E figures which began showing up in stores a few weeks ago, well in advance of the film's release. The figures are available in several sizes, from quite small to about 5 inches in height in the Deluxe figures.

I'll be reviewing three of the half-dozen Deluxe carded figures currently available.

Each figure comes on brightly yellow colored bubble cards with photos of the figure in action, with instructions on how to access the various play features of the figures within.

We have Cube and Stack Wall*E, a version of Wall*E which pushes out compacted stacks of trash; U-Repair Wall*E which comes apart and can be put back together piece by piece; and Search and Protect Eve, the sleek white robot Wall*E meets and befriends in the film.

Top notch toys based on licenses from a top notch film company

I was excited about Wall*E when I saw the first trailer. Pixar has never disappointed me, even with Cars which I wasn't terribly hopeful about, but was very pleasantly surprised. So it was with great excitement I ripped open these toys to put them through their paces.

First up we have the Cube and Stack Wall*E. In dirtied-up yellow, this figure is a very nice likeness of the titular figure in the film. His binocular head has a central hinge so his eyes can tilt to create expressions. His neck is jointed some, allowing for various head positions. His arms pivot at the shoulder, and the wrists rotate. Each hand is hinged so the "fingers" portion can open up or close, also allowing for good posing. He also has hard plastic "treads" which have four free-rolling wheels underneath.

His main play feature is his compactor. Open up his front panel and he reveals a yellow plunger which is operated by opening up his rear compacting panel. You can put one of the two enclosed junk piles into the space within and push it out by pushing down his back panel. The bonus feature is that you can use modeling clay and the compactor will push the clay out, molded into a cube, with trash details pressed into the clay by the mechanism inside. Fun.

Next comes Search and Protect Eve. She comes packed with several pieces of junk, and a removable weapon arm. Her arms click into her body nicely. In the film Eve has a hidden weapon in her arm. At this scale, that isn't very possible, so they just provide a replacement arm you can snap into her clear plastic shoulder joint, with weapon armed and ready. A clear plastic button on her back forces open her chest panels which reveals a space inside. She includes a clear plastic stand to simulate her hovering. She also comes with a piece of "exploding" rock to simulate her blaster blowing a hole into a boulder.

Eve's coolest feature is her eyes. Push her head down and her blue eyes change to one of six different "expressions." This is a clever feature.

I'm saving the best of the three for last. Recall that Cube and Stack Wall*E's feet are hard-plastic and he moves using free-rolling wheels. I would have much preferred real rolling rubber treads. Well U-Construct Wall*E delivers.

In fact this toy delivers in spades.

Looking very much like the Cube and Stack Wall*E, this one comes apart completely. Just about every part on him snaps off, and can be snapped back in place, including the eye caps, the arms, the wrists, the track mechanisms. Twenty parts in all. He also has opening front and back, and even includes a spare set of rubber tracks, a more rugged set.

And though this figure has parts that snap on, they're on strong enough to roll Wall*E around on his rubber treads easily. For the money, and in comparison to the others in this line, this toy is the masterpiece. My hat's off to the design team.

Bottom line--I'm as excited about these toys as I am about the upcoming film.