Giant Size Godzilla review

I've said it before, I'm a sucker for giant figures. Even for lines I don't usually have much interest in. To this date, NECA's Balrog is the only Lord of the Rings toy I own. And the large, Ultimate Godzilla toy from the 1998 movie has stood sentry over my entertainment center for a decade and a half. So with a new Godzilla movie hitting theaters this summer, there has been new Godzilla merchandise hitting store shelves for a while. But they have all been relatively small for giant monster figures, until now. The Giant Size Godzilla toy finally showed up at a local toy store. Of course, as a responsible adult I took my time and carefully considered the purchase... for roughly the minute it took to get back to the front of the store to get a shopping cart.

Packaging - 8/10

Giant Sized Godzilla comes in a very large box. It is a full two feet tall and sixteen inches wide. And all of that real estate is covered with an assortment of actual product photos and promotional images from the movie. The back of the box has a brief descrition of the backstory of Godzilla in the new movie and a photo of the toy along with a young boy for a sense of scale. The one thing that I don't like about the packaging is the window showing off the toy. To properly show off a toy in a box, the box needs to be significantly larger than the toy to have enough space. But Giant Size Godzilla is so large that the box is barely large enough for the toy to fit. So you can't really see the toy inside very well. So the window ends up wasting space on the box, weakens the box structurally and doesn't serve it's intended purpose.

Sculpting - 5/10

There isn't a great deal of detail necessary, especially since the movie isn't out yet. But unfortunately Giant Size Godzilla is a disappointment on several levels. The level of detail varies greatly from one area to another. The main body in particular has almost no depth to the sculpting. Meanwhile you have the legs attached which have fairly sharp details. The separate parts of the mold do not line up all that well either. The hinge on the tail is particularly bad. Even when the tail is swung to either side, there is still a large gap on both sides. I've seen worse, but usually not on an official product much less

Paint - 4/10

Giant Size Godzilla is a big toy, perhaps the largest that I own. The main paint work on the figure is the teeth, eyes and possibly the tongue. The paint work on the teeth is not done well though. The edges are sloppy and someone manged to paint two extra teeth on the side of his jaw. If this was a cheap bootleg, I would expect that. For the highlight of the movie line, this is an extremely poor showing. There is also some light shading down the front of the chest. But there is a lot more room for additional work on the rest of the figure.

Articulation - 6/10

Giant Size Godzilla has thirteen points of articulation:

hinged jaw
rotating neck
rotating shoulders
rotating wrists
rotating hips
rotating ankles
a hinge near the base of the tail
and two additional rotating joints in the tail

That is a decent amount of articulation. But a fair amount of it is of limited to no use such as the rotating joints at the ankles and in the tail. The hinge joints in the tail and jaw have fairly limited range. It would have been nice if they gave him ball jointed shoulders as well. But it is not like Godzilla typically does much damage with his arms.

Accessories - 0/10

There are no accessories included. While there isn't anything that seems like it is missing, it would have been nice to have something else included such as a building or tank to smash.

Value - 4/10

I paid $50 for Giant Size Godzilla. If the other aspect of the toy lived up to it's size, that would not be a bad price. Unfortunately, size seems to be the only thing it has going for it. That would be enough if the price tag was in the $20 to $30 range. But at twice that price, Giant Sized Godzilla just doesn't deliver enough bang for all of those bucks.

Happy Hunting:

I found my new, not-so-little friend at Toys R Us in Wisconsin. It is also listed on their web site, but the price is $10 higher. Unfortunately, given the size and price I don't expect the Giant Size version to show up in many stores. But if you are going to buy from Toys R Us, you should be able to save some money by waiting for a sale or coupon.

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Giant Size Godzilla side view

Godzilla front view