I wasn’t expecting to buy any of the new Transformers movie toys until much later.  Like in a year or so, when the non-movie movie figures start making their way to the shelves.  But when I saw Hatchet at my local Target, he was just too cool to pass up.

I haven’t even seen Transformers: Dark o f the Moon yet, which is another reason why I thought it’d be easy to avoid the movie toys.  But when you walk past them on every toy run, there’s bound to be a couple that catch your eye.  For me it was Hatchet and Laserbeak (who I’ll cover in an upcoming review).  So why was I so compelled to pick up Hatchet?  Because the first thing I thought of when I saw him was “Holy crap, it’s a Transformers Terror Dog!”

While Hatchet isn’t exactly a spitting image of the Terror Dogs from Ghostbusters, he does have this great monstrous quality to his robot/beast form.  Although the figure can be posed standing solely on his hind legs, he just looks so much more intimidating on all fours.  In fact, with his gaping mouth and splayed claws, this figure exudes feral energy and it’s hard not to pose him in a coiled or lunging position.

I was also pretty impressed by the sculpted details of this figure.  His head sculpt alone is chock full of details like slicked back ears, razor sharp teeth, and even a nose ring like you’d see on a bull.  I love that his jet engines encircle his head like a collar, and that there’s two claws coming off of one knuckle on his hands.  There’s even hidden details.  If you open up his back you’ll see more wires and the base of his spine-like tail inside his chest.  That’s a fantastic touch from the sculptor and something you just don’t expect on such a small figure.

Hatchet’s also got some nice articulation, although it does mostly limit him to a dog-like position.  His head probably suffers the most here because it’s on a hinge joint and can only look up and down.  It would have been great if they could have added a swivel to this so you could give him those animal-like head turns.  His hips are on ball joints, while his shoulders are on swivel ball joints.  His elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles are all hinge joints.  He has a very limited hinged waist, and his tail has three hinge joints giving it a scorpion-like quality.  Continue to page 2…