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Grinnah the Goblin

February 8, 2013 | By Errex More

Grinnah the Goblin is one of the many malevolent creatures seen in Peter Jackson’s movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and one of the characters made as a four-inch action figure by manufacturer The Bridge Direct.

Being a monster, Grinnah looks really ugly, but in a good way. For starters, he looks way more pale than the Moria goblins seen in the first Lord of the Rings and his attire looks far more primitive, although he may just be wearing whatever passes as casual garb in Goblin Town, consisting in a filthy loincloth and a couple of leather loops across his chest.

As Chief Interrogator, Grinnah is probably among the larger goblins in the Misty Mountains, making him barely shorter than a human but slightly bulkier. What tricks the mind into thinking he should be smaller are his odd body proportions, with the freakishly long limbs, shorter torso and humongous head.

One thing though, the package doesn’t show an actual image of the character as he appears in the movie, instead using a photo of the figure prototype, so trying to ascertain how screen-accurate this figure is would be next to impossible until the DVD/BD comes out.

Still, the overall sculpture is quite detailed and captures perfectly the nastiness of these creatures, although my favorite part has to be Grinnah´s face, which simply oozes malevolence.

The articulation is surprisingly well implemented on Grinnah, consisting of:

• Swivel neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Pegged hinge elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Swivel waist.

• Pegged hinge hips.

• Pegged hinge knees.

The range of movement on all of the joints is excellent, since no costume elements get in the way of articulation, Grinnah being almost naked. The figure is surprisingly well balanced and the long feet add a lot of stability on various poses.

The paintjob on Grinnah consists mostly in a shading wash applied liberally all over the figure, which conveys a sense of filthiness even though individual details like the eyes, claws and teeth are clearly distinct among the puddles of brown paint. The ears and some spots on his torso seem to have received a rosier paint application under the wash, which provides a nice color variation and adds depth to Grinnah’s appearance.

As far as accessories go, Grinnah doesn’t have much other than a short whip and a couple of loops to put on his torso. None of these accessories looks particularly interesting, but they are screen accurate and at least one of the loops has a knife sculpted in it.

Since Grinnah is a fairly generic looking goblin, it would have made sense to include some extra weapons in order to be able to army build him, but then again, since The Bridge Direct is a relatively newcomer to the action figure arena, they may have wanted to play it safe for the time being.

Nevertheless, Grinnah the Goblin turned out to be quite a satisfying little monster and I certainly look forward to see what else this line has in store.