Godzilla (Giant Evolved)(Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire by Playmates)

For my second MTB review, I’m going with the undisputed King of the Monsters himself, the beloved film star and cultural icon known as Godzilla!

This is the “Giant Godzilla Evolved” toy from Playmates, part of their tie-in line for the 2024 film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. I saw it with my older son at the theatre and we both loved it. We wanted to see Godzilla and King Kong duking it out with other colossal kaiju and that’s precisely what we got! My older son has seen all the Legendary Monsterverse films and he’s enjoyed every single one of them. My younger son will get to watch them too once he’s old enough. As for myself, the very first Godzilla film I ever watched was Godzilla 1985, and I thought it was pretty cool at the time (and a little scary). I’ve seen quite a number of the old Toho films as well, including the original 1954 one that started it all. Also seen the 1998 American film and that, of course, was utter dreck. And if you ask me which Godzilla films are my very favourite, then I would firmly go with the Legendary ones. Same goes for Kong.

Godzilla is sculpted in his classic upright stance with his right arm outstretched and the left one bent sharply at the elbow. His left leg is extended back and his mighty tail is dragging behind him with the tip raised and curling to the left. He most definitely lives up to the “Giant” part of his moniker, for he stands a towering 19 cm tall and is about 54 cm long.

If you’ve seen Godzilla x Kong, then you’re well aware that the Big G deliberately evolved himself by first absorbing human-made radiation from a nuclear plant and then absorbing cosmic radiation from another Titan’s lair. The most noticeable change was that his dorsal plates became larger and magenta in colour. The plates on this toy, however, are more of a reddish-pink. Most of them are made of translucent, flexible plastic, but the ones on the last half of the tail are simply painted pink.

Godzilla’s main colour is, naturally, a dark grey-blue. His claws and underbelly are ash grey and the spikes protruding from his elbows are reddish pink. His eyes are dark yellow, his teeth are white, and the inside of his mouth is pink. Again, it doesn’t look quite match the colours shown on screen, but this toy is still unmistakably Godzilla evolved.

Godzilla’s mouth opens and closes. His arms rotate at the shoulders, his legs rotate at the hips, and his ankles can rotate as well. His tail, which is detachable just like on the big theropods from Mattel and Creative Beast Studio, has a single ball joint near the base. While it can be rotated in either direction, it really doesn’t look good when the dorsal plates are misaligned. Overall, this isn’t a particularly poseable toy, but it doesn’t really need to be. Godzilla looks like he’s ready for a battle regardless of what position his mouth and arms are in. Plus he can pull off a perfectly good horizontal stance with his head facing downward and his tail raised high in the air.

While his colouration may not quite match his on-screen appearance, Godzilla’s actual physique certainly does. He has a relatively small head mounted on the end of a super thick neck. His arms are long and muscular with four digit hands, including opposable thumbs. His legs are even more muscular and also terminate in four digit feet, with the largest claws on the second digit. His torso is thinner and more defined than in his first three films, with a bulging chest and a sunken gut. His three rows of dorsal plates are jagged like tongues of fire and the tip of his long tail is somewhat like the thagomizer of a stegosaur.

The sculpting detail here is frankly nothing to write home about. Godzilla has a basic overlapping scale pattern with rows of small osteoderms on his neck and legs. His teeth and claws are reasonably pointy and his plates have lots of grooves running through them. And unfortunately, Godzilla’s left side has nine visible screw holes. Compared to the likes of CollectA, Creative Beast, Haolonggood, PNSO, or Safari Ltd., it’s rather basic, but then this is a children’s toy through and through, not a high end model. It’s intended for play, not display, and it certainly succeeds in that regard. My older son received it for his seventh birthday and he’s very fond of it, meaning that he’s banged and bashed it around quite a bit. And thus far, Godzilla has not only held up to the rough treatment, but trounced scores of other monsters, dinosaurs, and stuffed toys in our household.

Overall, this is a very good Godzilla toy. It’s appropriately big, it certainly looks like Godzilla, it comes off as ferocious and powerful, and it’s durable and fun to play with. If you’re not able to find it in a physical store anymore, you should still be able to on Amazon or other online stores.