Now to me Grimlock is an iconic character. I think they got it right first time with Grimlock - See TFU.info - and subsequent versions have struggled to measure up to the original. How does this one compare ?
The first thing that occurs about the beast mode is "why on earth is there a massive great missile launcher on his back ?" Closer inspection reveals the missile launcher looks a lot like the hand gun that Classic Pretender Grimlock has - See TFU.info again The dinosaur itself is a T-Rex, but is more of a modern horizontal T-Rex than a traditional upright T-Rex like G1 Grimlock was. You can get a reasonable standing traditional pose out of him though. Main colour is grey with some black plastic and gold detailing mixed in. The dinosaur is reminiscent of Beast Wars Transmetal Megatron - it's the head, and the jointed tail though this one only moves from side to side and not up and down as well like TM Megs - a tail that bent up/down as well would allow Grimlock to assume a more classic T -Rex pose. He's got a pair of front claws ball jointed at their shoulder, hips that move back and forth and swing out to the sides, a bicep joint below the hip, a forward and a backward knee joint and ankles as well as the 4 pivoting points on the tail - it is possible to bend the tail all the way round and make it point forwards. The jaw opens, and the eyes are lightpiped in red from a panel on the top of his head. It's a nice dinosaur mode but it's more BW TM Megs than G1 Grimlock I think.
The TF is interesting - a little different from what you're expecting perhaps. Remove the gun, and pull off the tail by lifting it up where it joins the body. Pull on Grimlock's dino head to extend the dino neck. Fold the head up, the lower jaw down and bring the forearms forward. Separate the front of the dinosaur in two in a line from the base of the neck to the end of the dino head - this forms the robot's legs with the dino head becoming the feet, a big departure and one I've not seen elsewhere in the TF line. Fold back the panels round the hips. Under one of the dinosaur hips is a gold panel - rotate at just above the robot waist so this panel is facing forward. There's a bit of black plastic containing the head, rotate this so the head's facing forward and the large sticking up bit of black plastic is facing away from the gold panel. The gold panel swings round 180 degrees on the front of the chest - so left top becomes right bottom and the red detailing on it swaps sides. Bring the leg at the back round to the side of the dinosaur that's on *your* right to form his left arm. Fold the large black panel down his back, and then fold the little tower for the gun back beside it. Lock the remaining dino leg in place as the 2nd arm. Fold down the black plastic panels at the side of the heads and pose the arms - the dino feet may need some folding back. The gun goes in one hand and the tail as a whip in the other and you're done.....
..... except that somehow something's gone very wrong in the shoulder region. The panel origami for getting the robot arms from the dino legs works but doesn't lock into place by itself, and the black panels that fold down should also click in place but don't. Oh dear. And while we're on a moaning streak let's talk about the legs - the just look wrong, like he's wearing some huge rubber boots with wide tops like some super heroes I could mention. The feet are stable but standing on the teeth isn't going to do them any long term good. An extra joint at the waist and folding down so the widest bit of the neck became the base of the feet would have done the trick and made it look much more like G1 Grimlock. The head as feet might have worked if we could have lost the extensive armour round the lower leg caused by the dino neck.
Now at least they've got the gold chest right - but they've missed a trick here by changing it so it's now got a clear red circle to one side because that says to me it's crying out to be a spark crystal - see TM2, BW Neo and Beast machines reviews - with either an Autobot or the BM Dinobot symbol.
The head is at last a masterpiece on this toy - I think this could be the best light pipe I've ever seen with his visor lighting up red.
Articulation - ankles via the joint for the mouth, fore and aft at the knees but they're fare too high for any significant poseability, ball jointed knees, no waist but there's an off centre swivel joint that's part of the TF half way up the body. Shoulders move back and forth and swing out to the sides, there's a bicep joint and the elbows swing forward, but the elbows are mounted very low on the arms. The head turns from side to side - however since the black plastic of the top of the shoulders and neck isn't properly secured frequent that turns with the head.
Weapons are the dino mode cannon/missile launcher and tail. We said earlier the cannon looks like the Pretender Classic gun and that's even down to the sword blade down one side. Unfortunately said blade doesn't have a corresponding handle unlike the Pretender Classic version. I don't think even Wing Sabre's handles can come to our rescue this time as the blade will be in and odd position pointing in. I just don't do tails as whips, never liked it on the TM Megatron, don't like it here. Both weapons can be stored at the same time on his back using the connectors for beast mode. I'm disappointed by the weapons as I think G1 Grimlock's sword and double barrelled gun are iconic weapons for the character - the launcher is secondary. I'd have preferred the classics version to be packed with replicas of those - a sword could have easily been concealed between the legs. However both Cybertron Scrapametal and Wing Sabre have swords - Scrapmetal's while smaller is Clear Red and Classics Prime has a double barrelled gun which suits Grimlock - very G2 comic.
Overall - I can't remember the last time I found a toy with this many issues. This is the fourth robo dinosaur Grimlock - Original (and G2), Classic Pretender, Energon and Classic - the rest have been bio dinosaurs. I don't think any of them have measured up to the original. If they took that entirely in plastic, added some articulation to the hips, waist and elbows, and made the weapons concealable they'd have a sure fire hit in their hands. As it is here they've experimented, and ended up with something that hasn't quite worked as a toy, but still is much better than the previous Energon Grimlock - and I really didn't like that (See My Review)
So..... Adequate. But could have been so much better and we somehow expected more given the high standard of some of the other classics.
Grimlock was available in the Henkei range as toy C-03. The grey was lightened all over the toy, the red was brighter and the neck covered in a mixture of gold and silver chrome.
In addition to being released carded Classics Grimlock was also available in a twin pack with Classics Jetfire in some markets - not the UK or the US.
The dinosaur mode for the toy resembles the G1 Decepticon Tape Overkill who hasn't previously had a robot mode. Gradually the Decepticon tapes are all getting them - Rumble & Grenzy had already, Ravage, Buzzsaw & Laserbeak got theirs in Beast Wars and Ratbat & Overkill received theirs in Universe.