Captain Jack Sparrow

May 27, 2011 | By More


Pirates of the Caribbean is sailing back into theaters this summer, and with it some new action figures. For the previous 2 films, the figures were brought to us by Zizzle, this time around they come to us courtesy of Jakk’s Pacific. After their Mummy Returns figures, I wasn’t very hopeful.

What a better way to get a feel for the new line than to check out the hero, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Appearance:

Captain Jack for the most part has had one basic look through all of the films. If anything they’ve added to his costume and not taken anything away. And really this figure captures the essence of that look.

In this film, Jack is without a coat most of the time, so that is the look this figure has. The the first thing you notice is the layered look of the figure. Apparently, like ogres, pirates have layers.

The first outermost layers are the belts and sash. They are done in a rubbery material to make them flexible. As a matter of fact, for being painted, they nicer and more flexible than a good part of the Hasbro add on pieces.

The first piece is his sash, which is a single piece. It has a nice big silver buckle painted on the front. The back has some loops for a sword or cutlass. The thing that I like is the entire surface has some pattern to it to give it a worn leather look. It’s not perfect, but goes a long way towards realism. A little paint on the rivets on the sword loop would have been nice, but not 100% necessary.

The other belts are molded as one piece, and really are nicely done for this scale. The belts are painted in different colors. Both share nicely painted ornate gold buckles. The red and white tea towel is part of this piece as well. While it has stripes on the front, the back portion that can be seen is painted white.

The belts have a couple of other trinkets sculpted to them. Jack’s compass is here. There’s a gold detail to it and looks proper. Also here is a sculpted shrunken head. I know he has one on his belt, however, I think this one is over size to make it recognizable.

Under the belts is the blue vest piece. It has detailing all over it like some kind of embroidery. I don’t know if this is screen accurate or not, but really breaks up the piece.

The rest of the body is typical pirate. You all know the look, plain pants with some swashbuckling boot, and top it all off with a puffy shirt. Nothing spectacular here. Of course, most of Jack’s detail comes from his over garb. One cool thing is the left cuff is sculpted to look rather ragged. Nice little touch.

On to the head. I’m not sure about the face. It’s not perfect, but not horribly off either. Jack has a couple of new blemishes in this film that have appeared without explanation. The first is a small x shaped wound on this right cheek and the second is a red boil or some sort of ugly skin thing on his right chin. Both are represented here with paint. Much like in the film, the hair covers the mark on the chin.

Speaking of the hair, it’s a bit of let down. It’s all done in one color and the detail is pretty soft. Cap’n Jack’s dreadlocks have quite a bit of texture that isn’t really here. The bone on his head dress seems to be completely done with paint. I’m not even sure it was sculpted, it just looks like some white paint was plopped on a convenient dread.

Overall this figure’s look suffers from one thing: it’s too clean. Jack Sparrow, to steal a Mrs. Nerd phrase, always looks like he needs a flea dip. This figure just looks too clean. Some washes would have gone a long way towards that end. His hands for example should look dirty. There’s no dirt on the nails. The white of his shirt is just that, white. I would have thought that it would have been molded in yellowish white, at least.

Fun:

Okay. I’m not an an adamant articulation  fan. However, I guess I’ve come to expect a little more than what is present here. I just can’t believe a figure in this price range doesn’t have ball jointed shoulders. I mean he fights with a sword for crying out loud.  The elbows and wrists just can’t make up for this.

The legs don’t fair much better. While the back of the vest is cut out to aid in getting Jack to sit, the cut joint hips just don’t do much for this swashbuckler. The knees are jointed. However, the ankles aren’t. With those big boots to hide a joint in, it would have been perfect, but nothing. Not even a swivel at the foot.

Jack does come with a couple of  accessories. The first of which is his hat. Molded in the same flexible rubber as his other garments, his hat fits nicely on his head. It actually does a good job of staying on too. It does seem just a tad oversize to me, however.

Next up are two matched flintlock pistols. They are okay. They are plain with no paint. You could probably tuck these in his belt, but it would take some stretching. It would have been nice to have a place to put them.

Last up is a cutlass. This piece is a little too flexible brown molded piece with a silver painted blade. It also is driving me nuts. The blade is curve in the wrong direction. The guard would prevent you from striking down with the curve. It also would make it very difficult to draw.

Jack also comes with a life size ring with an led in it. Shine this on the figure and it reveals, well, I don’t know. I suppose it is suppose to be like moonlight in the first film. and reveals a skeleton.

The effect shows up on Jacks face, arms, chest, hands and boots. I have to say for having some extra “invisible ink” on the figure, you can’t really tell. For that, I say well done.

I actually put off this review in hopes the film would explain the ring thing. It doesn’t. It’s just a gimmick to take off of the thing the people liked about the first film. I would have rather had a more articulated figure or some paint washes in it’s place.

Overall:

I’m torn on this one. While the figure looks great and certainly represents the spirit of Jack Sparrow, I can’t get past the articulation and paint. They obviously put a lot of care in the sculpt and it’s disappointing to not see the paint match it. The less than ball jointed shoulders are a big faux pas in the action figure world to me these days, so I’m really surprised by that here.

In general, he’ll look pretty good on a shelf. If you knew somebody that could do some washes over him, he’d look even better. Now, why isn’t there any rum in this review?

Engineernerd Score: 80/100

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  1. Errex says:

    Hmmm. I don’t mind the articulation or the overall cleanliness of the figure, but the size of the head is way too distracting for me. That and the tiny doll hands.

    I hadn’t reflected on the gimmick and how it has nothing to do with the movie itself. Looks like Jakks straight on decided to do whatever they wanted to, regardles of what the movie was about.