Jurassic Park III: Spinosaurus

Year of release: 2001

Description: this bipedal animal is coloured in mostly brown, with some tones of grey on his back, upper jaw, upper legs and most of his belly. The neck, upper part of the sail and part of the tail are covered in a slightly shiny golden paint job. 12 greyish purple stripes adorn each side of the sail. Its claws are black, and a black JP III logo can be found on its left leg. A dino damage wound is located on the left flank, showing bones and muscle tissue. A small button is found in this wound: when pressed, the figure emits a high pitched shrieking roar. Another button is located in the throat: pushing this button makes the mouth of the creature open, and produces a vicious attack roar.

This Spinosaurus stands in a bent pose, as if stalking prey, or waiting to jump on its victim. The tail, which is rather short, is also bent. The animal has large arms with very nasty claws. The snout is quite elongated and resembles a crocodilian’s head. The beastie is very thin, and has almost no body mass. It’s also out of proportion: the head and especially the arms are too big compared to the body.

Analysis: this is not a very good Spinosaurus figure. It is very skinny and were it not for the sail and distinguishable head, one would hardly be reminded of the Spinosaurus seen in JP III. The colouring is very dull, though the gold is an interesting touch. The head sculpt is well enough, and has a certain mean look. The sail, Spinosaurus’s most recognizable feature, is not very impressive in this case. The pose the figure stands in doesn’t help either: it limits playability severely. The arms are too long, yet the tail is too short. It’s just not a very well designed figure.

Another point of irritation, as with all larger JP III dinosaurs, is the dino damage wound, Once again it cannot be covered up, so the dinosaur just goes through life with its guts practically hanging out. The biting action isn’t very good: the button to activate it is very inconveniently placed. When biting this Spino doesn’t appear very menacing. The sounds are interesting though: these are not the same sounds the Spinosaurus in the movie made (too high pitched for one thing), but they certainly set this creature apart from it’s fellow carnivorous critters.

Playability: limited to say the least. While all the limbs are poseable, the stance this figure takes on hinders playability options. The position of the tail is especially annoying. The attack action is neither well worked out nor very original. The jaws just don’t open that wide to do damage to any possible opponent but the human figures. And of course the figure is electronic too, so you can’t play too rough with it if you want to keep the sounds in working condition. This dinosaur may be useful for dioramas but not much more.

Realism: though the head and sail definitely set it apart from the other JP toys and make it recognizable as a Spinosaurus, this dinosaur figure doesn’t resemble the Spinosaurus from JP III all that much. That dinosaur was a lot more robust and muscled, while this animal is just a tiny skinny figure. The paint job isn’t very similar either (though it is similar to most other Spinosaur toys Hasbro made for this toy line): the creature in the movie was more grey than brown, and certainly didn’t have any golden highlights. This sculpt isn’t very similar to a paleontologically correct Spinosaurus either: like stated above the arms are too big, the tail is too short, the nostrils should be at the very end of the snout, and it’s still way too thin.

Repaint: no. This figure would be repainted once for the JP III CamoXtreme toy line though.

Overall rating: 3/10. It’s not a very good figure and has both limited playability and an ugly look. It’s not very rare, so if you really want one it’s likely to be found quite easily for a relatively low price.