Bandai Ben 10 ALIEN SWARM Movie Set 2

[JeffSaylor]

Fight the swarm with three cool aliens...

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Viewers of Cartoon Network will no doubt be familiar with the Ben 10 franchise. It's a great cartoon that's morphed from the original series into Ben 10: Alien Force and now the upcoming Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. What you may not know is that there have also been two live-action Ben 10 films on Cartoon Network. Both of them mixing live actors and CG creatures, the films gave us new looks at our favorite aliens and some villains never before seen in the show. To celebrate and promote the second film, Ben 10 Alien Swarm, Bandai released two Movie Sets, each with three figures in the Alien Collection series. Today we'll take a look at the second set containing Nanomech, Humungousaur, and Big Chill!

The Movie Sets come in fairly traditional packaging, a tall, wide, and not very deep box designed to show off the included figures and fit a bunch on the store toy shelf. The box itself is decorated with the usual Ben 10 Alien Force blue and green background pattern, with an Omnitrix graphic in the bottom right corner of the front panel. The set's name and the included characters are listed under the figures, and a large text box on the top left explain that these are from the film.

The back of the box has images of the included figures and those from the other Movie Set, along with an advertisement for the Omnitrix Illuminator role play toy.

Each Movie Set has figures in three varieties: a variant of an existing figure, a new figure destined to have a single-carded re-release, and an all new figure. In Set #2, we've got a clear green Humungousaur that's a variant of the existing Humungousaur Defender mold, a cloaked Big Chill figure that will be released individually later this year, and an all new Nanomech V.2. All three of these are heroic aliens used by Ben Tennyson in the film; you'll need the first set for the film's villains.

Humungousaur takes a solid figure and swaps out its parts with translucent green plastic. The great big dinosaur-like alien first debuted in toy form in mid-2008 (read review HERE), with a slight upgrade to the figure recently in the Defender version (review HERE). The new green guy has the Defender sculpt, which means that other than the bulky chest, long clawed arms, stubby legs, and short tail, Humungousaur has the snarling open-mouthed head sculpt.

As with all translucent figures, this one loses a lot of sculpt definition when there's no paint to bring it out, but that's the tradeoff. On the plus side, the bright green looks cool, especially next to the previous incarnations. The chest-mounted Omnitrix is painted in black and green.

There's nothing new in Humungousaur's articulation either. He has joints at the shoulders, elbows, and hips. While that's not a lot, the alien dinosaur can be posed in some nice positions with his long expressive arms and low center of gravity.

Big Chill is one of my favorite aliens in Ben 10, and so I was very excited to see another version of him in this set. The previous release captured the Necrofriggian in "flight mode" with his four wings extended. This time, Big Chill appears in his hooded and cloaked form with the wings wrapped around him. You can tell that this look was a bit of a challenge for Bandai to recreate in this scale, and the figure succeeds in some ways better than others. In his resting position, the figure looks very good and captures the character quite well. Big Chill's sculpt is nice with smooth wing surfaces and differing thicknesses where they overlap, and patterned alien skin on the head, hands, and legs. The wing sections, which on this figure form the cloak, hood, and skirt, are made of clear blue plastic.

Paint is also well done on Big Chill, with the accurate pattern of black and two different shades of blue. The legs and head are especially nice looking, along with the bright green of his eyes (there's also green on the chest-mounted Omnitrix). The wings have black and the same blue hues painted over the edges of the translucent parts, which looks pretty good but not perfect. That's part of the difficulty, meshing the look of the figure with more mundane issues like parts and articulation.

This Big Chill is not very poseable, with joints only at the next (restricted), shoulders (up and down), waist, and rotating hips. Basically, you can pose the alien either cloaked with his arms down or bursting forth with his arms up at his sides. If you've already got the first Big Chill, or the upcoming Defender repaint, you'll probably keep this figure in his cloaked form which looks pretty darn good.

Finally, there's Nanomech V.2. A new alien in the film, Nanomech undergoes a transformation captured in toy form across both Movie Sets. This advanced form is a metal alien with insectoid features. It looks pretty unique with shovel-like forearms, long triple toed feet, wings, and a cyclopean head with additional tiny eyes. Nanomech's sculpt is pretty impressive, covered in mechanical details like tubes, ridges, and circuitry. Even the wings have some wiring details in them. The forearm "shovels" are a bit disappointing, just totally smooth bulky pieces. I'm not 100% familiar with the film, so this may be due to the character's actual look.

Like the previous Nanomech figure, V.2 is primarily gray, though this one is a much lighter hue. A lot of this is accomplished with translucent gray plastic parts, which look even better with painted details underneath. Other than the gray, circuitry is done in black and silver, and the shovels are slightly metallic gray. Green shows up on Nanomech's eyes, chest tubes, Omnitrix, and wings (translucent).

Nanomech's articulation is interesting, taking advantage of and making up for his odd structure. He's jointed at the neck, shoulders (ball), elbows, hips, and knees. Nanomech's surprisingly poseable with his odd legs and arms, and looks good next to the previous figure.

The Alien Swarm Move Sets are targeted at kids who have seen the film (they'll also love the included sticker), but their appeal is definitely wider. The figures are solid and look good, perfect for any Ben 10 collector or fan of interesting alien designs. The three Omnitrix aliens here all have at least some translucent parts and lots of character. Keep in mind that this Big Chill will be re-released as a single, but this may be the only way to get the others.

For even more photos of this set, CLICK HERE!

Review and Photos by Scott Rubin

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