Jurassic Park Chaos Effect: Tyrannonops

Year of release: 1998

Accessories:

-Three pieces of capture gear

Description: this carnivorous quadruped hybrid stands in a somewhat active mode, with its right hind leg and front left leg posed forward and its other legs positioned backward, as if walking. The rest of the figure’s body assumes a neutral posture. Tyrannonops comes with biting jaws: pulling the right hind leg back causes the upper jaw, equipped with four nasty looking dagger like fangs, to raise upwards, as if the monster is opening its maul, ready to close those jaws around an unfortunate creature’s body. An interesting detail: the creature’s purple tongue sticks out when the animal opens its mouth. Releasing the leg makes the jaws close with a snap.

Tyrannonops is adorned with an intricate and colourful paint job. The dominant colour is orange, which can be found over almost all of its body, especially on the limbs, around the throat, the midsection and the base of the tail, as well as behind the eyes. A darker, almost brown, shade of orange is located on its back, above the legs and on top of the midsection. The creature sports small beige spots surrounded by black stripes on its tail, and larger versions of this colour scheme around its waist and near the head. The monster’s lower jaw is beige, while the upper jaw is black with a purple spot on each side containing its beige eyes (no irises, unlike the Tyrannonops featured on the card). It’s got some small black spots on its back, the small claws on all four feet are also black, and a black JP CE logo is found on the upper right hind leg, along with what appears to be the number .66, though it’s a bit hard to tell (it might also be .06, .86 or .96).

The Tyrannonops comes with three pieces of capture gear, all painted metallic dark blue. There’s the typical handcuff, in this case large enough to fit around the monster’s muscled neck, as well as some leg shackles shaped like a cross to keep the beast from walking away. Thirdly, there’s a head piece which can go around the creature’s head, in an attempt to keep it from using those strong jaws. It doesn’t work though, since activating the biting action also makes the figure thrash the head piece of when it’s on.

Analysis: another older creature sculpt makes its way into the Chaos Effect toy line, also sporting a colourful makeover. In the case of the Raptor Alpha, the figure benefited from its new colour scheme. Tyrannonops has a less appealing and even somewhat ugly look to him, though this is of course a subjective comment. The combination of orange, black and beige, albeit on the original side, just isn’t my cup of tea.

Fortunately the designers didn’t mess with the biting action, labelled ‘saber strike fangs’ on the figure’s card. Pulling the leg back makes the Tyrannonops open its mouth stupendously wide and sticking its tongue out (it looks a bit silly, but it’s a neat little touch). The jaws snap back with force, tightly gripping anything unlucky enough to be in their path. Be careful though, doing this too often or too rough may cause paint wear (minor though, but paint wear nonetheless). It’s one of the more effective and powerful biting actions off the various toy lines, and always a blast to perform.

The capture gear, also repainted, does its job relatively well. Though the cuff isn’t very useful, the legs restraints secure the monster’s feet to a satisfactory extent. The same isn’t necessarily true for the head muzzle, since the creature has the ability to sling it off using its forceful jaws. But by its own accord the head piece sticks to the head well enough. Other than this, the capture gear doesn’t add much, as usual.

Playability: Tyrannonops comes with the usual range of poseable limbs as well as a moveable upper jaw. Though its legs are positioned in a walking mode this doesn’t hinder playability much. The creature is equipped with a strong and easily accessible biting action, capable of gripping human figures and smaller dinosaurs without problems. However, the tongue of the figure might get in the way when biting something. The three pieces of capture gear form a nice way to restrain the animal, but aren’t much use otherwise, though the head piece can be removed by activating the biting action, so there’s a dinosaur-breaks-free-of-restraints option involved to some extent.

Realism: being a repaint of the Lycaenops sculpt, this figure obviously shows too much Lycaenops features and no hint of Rex DNA whatsoever. Though the orange paint job echoes the colouring of the large Omega T-Rex of this toy line, it’s the only link to Tyrannosaurs one can spot here. It would have made more sense to call it a cross between a Lycaenops and some other four legged predator, maybe even a modern day animal like a tiger (hence the tiger like paint job). Given the fact the Tanaconda and Compstegnathus figures of this toy line also featured present day creatures’ DNA, it wouldn’t seem strange Tyrannonops underwent a similar genetic makeup. Now this creature just doesn’t live up to its name.

Repaint: yes. This figure is a repaint of the JPS2 Lycaenops, featuring repainted capture gear which originally came with that same sculpt. A second Lycaenops repaint, including the same capture gear, would be released in the first JP Dinosaurs line later on.

Overall rating: 7/10. The sculpt is good as ever, still featuring the powerful biting jaws it originally had, but the new paint job is nothing special and even a bit ugly. This is one of the more common CE figures and thus is easier to find than most of the other figures of this toy line. It shouldn’t prove too hard to find one at a decent price either.

Movies gone by: when will it end...

Here's some more mini-reviews of movies I failed to review before due to technical difficulties. Meanwhile, I still see more films every week so it's piling up fast. Hopefully, I can still find time to finish this catching-up and get back to regular reviewing. Next week will be busy for me though (regular work, press viewing, dentist appointment, shipping out many parcels full of sold Jurassic Park figures, etc.), so that remains to be seen. Fingers crossed, no promises.

Hyde Park on Hudson: ***/*****, or 6/10.

The historic first visit of English royalty to the United States in 1939 immortalized on film, seen through the eyes of President Roosevelt's distant cousin Margaret (played by Laura Linney), with whom he had an uneasy semi-secret affair. Equally uneasy is the first meeting between Mr. President (a formidable Bill Murray) and the King and Queen of Britain (a sympathetic and convincingly 'just crowned' Samuel West and Olivia Colman), the latter pair being completely uncomfortable with the American way of life, but in need of winning over the American public to support the Brits in the apparently unavoidable upcoming war with Germany. The ultimate message: they're all normal human beings with their own failings and strengths so why not be friends? Putting human faces on historical characters of such stature is what this film does best, resulting in both hilarious confrontations – my favorite: the King waving at American farmers in the distance for lack of other people to wave at, only to be completely ignored – and genuinely compelling emotional moments, but it's also a weakness: these people behave all too human, thus making for a fair share of dull moments that compromise the film's progress as the characters engage in routine human behavior. The plot regarding FDR and his hidden mistress also gets in the way as it gears towards a predictable clash between both personalities over the exact nature of their affiliation that lacks full audience engagement. Overall, this is a real 'hit and miss' movie, but the thrill of seeing historical characters bicker and argue about whether or not to eat hot dogs due to their political nature demands at least one watch. My ex-history teacher, who was sitting in the audience when I was running the film at the local arthouse theatre, seemed to agree with this assessment: glad to know I learned some things from him back in my high school days.

Life of Pi: ****/*****, or 8/10.

Grand tale of survival, man “versus” beast, the importance of hope and the personal nature of religious beliefs, which won Ang Lee the 'Best Director' Academy Award. A man from India named Pi (Irrfan Khan) tells his life's tale: growing up in a zoo, ultimately moving the whole animal circus to America as a boy, only to lose everything (including his family) in a tropical storm at sea. Stranded on a life boat, the young man (now played by Suraj Sharma) has to contend with the only other survivor, an adult tiger named Richard Parker (created by a fabulous mix between CGI and the real deal, the two blending in so seemlessly that few people can tell the difference: a VFX Oscar well earned!). Stuck with each other for months on end on the ocean desert, Pi recalls their various encounters, the good, the bad and the bizarre, with the message that no matter how bleak things seem, there's always something to enjoy about the circumstances life has in store for you. Lee serves this viewpoint from an atypical religious angle that celebrates the good in religion by allowing Pi to take the best elements of various religious belief systems and appropriating it to form his own feel-good personal religion. The surprising result (for hardcore atheists like myself at least) is that, despite the fact Pi opens his story with the line 'I will tell you a story that will make you believe in God', the movie is never to be considered a pamphlet to convert anyone to any organized faith, but a call for total individualist religious freedom, to belief in whatever you want to belief to make the world work better for yourself. And so, despite having lost his family at sea and having to take care not to be eaten every day, Pi cannot help but marvel at life's grandeur, as he witnesses splendid sights seen by few, including a whale feasting on phosphorescent plankton at night, a carnivorous island populated only by meercats and eventual mutual survival for Richard and himself against all odds. As is expected from Ang Lee, such a colourful tale comes with his typical ingeniously rich visual imagery, leading to many breathtaking and haunting shots ('Best Cinematography' too), made all the more effective by its grandiose use of 3D technology: hence, watching this film in 2D is like listening to music with your ears closed.

Gangster Squad: ***/*****, or 6/10.

Period crime flick set in late Fourties' Los Angeles, loosely based on historical events. When the city suffers under the regime of ruthless crime boss Mickey Cohen (unusual but effective role for Sean Penn), who rules through intimidation and corruption, a few clean cops form an equally uncompromising (i.e., violent) 'gangster squad' to rid the town of Cohen and his consorts by any means necessary. Under the command of Josh Brolin, these badgeless law enforcers hit Cohen as hard as they can in any which way they can think of, showing no mercy at all. An all-out war between both parties is the predictable result, while a rather forced love relationship is established between cop Ryan Gosling and Cohen's mistress Emma Stone, to complicate matters romantically (and needlessly too). All in all, a solid action flick devoid of surprises, but delivering everything you would expect (which is both meant positively and negatively). Originally scheduled to be released a good six months earlier, a shootout scene in a movie theater needed to be altered due to the Aurora 'Dark Knight Rises' incident: some footage of the original scene can still be found in trailers all over the Internet though. The most interesting thing about this film is the fact it's a direct prequel to the far superior period thriller/'film noir' LA Confidential (1997), which details what happened after Cohen's historical downfall and outmatches Gangster Squad in almost every respect (except for the explicit violence).

Django Unchained: ****/*****, or 8/10.

Hailed as 'Tarantino's latest masterpiece' well in advance of its actual release, this movie reaffirms Tarantino excels in taking an established film genre and dipping it in his usual sauce of violence, a catching soundtrack and memorable oneliners. Though it's safe to say the man ought to resort to other tactics soon before it backfires on him, it cannot be denied Django Unchained is a great, thoroughly entertaining film. Chronicling the rise to freedom of former slave Django (a stern Jamie Foxx) by the grace of bounty hunter Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz, who won his second Oscar by repeating himself for a Tarantino film, except playing a good guy this time around), the movie witnesses Django, striking a deal with the man, becoming his sidekick as the two track down his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who is now in the service of the wealthy southern slaver Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, both surprisingly charming and wickedly discomforting). Figuring out an elaborate scheme to get his wife back, Django soon finds out more violent solutions are in order to reach his goal. The no-no word 'nigger' can be heard a whopping 107 times, to the acknowledgment of its historical use but to the predictable shock of conservative America: accordingly, action figures of characters from this film were promptly taken off shelves to avoid controversy in stores, but the ridiculous debate about the use of such sensitivewords rages on. Apparently quality television shows like Deadwood get away with it, but a much anticipated flick like this gets marred in political debate for applying the same tactics. A wonderfully intertextual neo-western, the film is laced with references to past westerns, both the undying classics and the more obscure fare, as is Tarantino's forte. The (this time hidden) movie babbling fortunately doesn't get in the way of plot and character development, as it did in Death Proof and tended to do in Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino gets away with his proven routine again, for now: it would be nice to see him tackle something wholly new for a change though.