DE 
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Series: Rise of the Beasts
Allegiance: Maximals
Categories: Transforming Mask
Year: 2023
Prelude: This is not a review about Apeface. It’s a review about a robot that transforms into the face of an ape, but he’s not called Apeface. An ape face, but not Apeface. Got it? Good, so let’s get on with this review about a robot who becomes an ape face but isn’t called Apeface. Let’s say go!
Robot Mode: We’re starting with the robot mode, which shows us a pretty huge guy, almost old-school Leader Class size, and quite clearly it’s Optimus Primal. It’s more the classic Beast Wars look of Primal, less the Rise of the Beasts one, but no doubt which character he represents.
The robot is surprisingly detailed for what is essentially a gimmick and the articulation isn’t bad, either. He’s got knees, elbows, ball-jointed feet, twisting wrists, a hip swivel, everything. Only the head is pretty fixed on place, no turning or looking up. The arms cannot swivel above shoulder-height, but otherwise there is little to impede this guy. He comes with no weapons, sadly.
Now given the limitations of this robot having to transform into a mask, there are naturally some drawbacks to the robot. For one thing, when looking at him from the back, you see a lot of open spaces, especially in the legs. The back isn’t exactly a smooth surface, either. And you have the wings with the mask straps attached to them. Not mentioned in the instructions, you can hide most of the straps underneath the chest flap.
So bottom line: it’s a robot, it’s clearly Optimus Primal, and it’s surprisingly well-articulated, too. Still, the robot mode clearly wasn’t the focus of this toy here.
Alternate Mode: The focus is the alternate mode, for Optimus Primal transforms into a mask depicting an ape face (okay, enough with the Apeface jokes!). The transformation is pretty simple, the only slighthly difficult thing about it is the very tight knee joints. Once done, you have a mask depicting the face of Optimus Primal’s gorilla mode with the Maximal symbol proudly displayed on the forehead.
The face isn’t really a great match to either the CGI model of the movie or the original Beast Wars gorilla (neither toy nor CGI model), but it’s clearly a techno-organic gorilla, so that suffices. The mask is sized of a kid’s head, but it can also be worn by an adult if he doesn’t mind his chin sticking out a bit below (see 8th picture in in the gallery). The straps are long enough for big-headed adults, too.
Bottom line: this mode is exactly as advertised, a wearable mask. Again, not that great a resemblance to any particular version of Optimus Primal’s gorilla mode, but close enough.
Remarks: Optimus Primal’s first foray onto the silver screen as part of the Rise of the Beasts movie garnered him a ton of action figures and merchandise, a transforming mask among them. This is also my first foray into transforming masks, as I’ve seen quite a few of them before, but I always considered them too costly for what’s essentially just a fun gimmick. Thankfully this one here was greatly reduced in price, so I finally indulged myself and got my first transforming mask.
In the end, it’s everything I expected. A fun, wearable mask that manages a surprisingly good robot mode, even though that was obviously a secondary consideration. Not going to start collecting transforming masks now, no sir, but I don’t regret buying this one. So not a great collector’s item or anything, but fun.
Rating: B
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