Mosasaurus vs. Submarine(Jurassic World by Hasbro)

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The sky is clear and boundless blue; it is a beautiful 80 degrees, a nice day to be at the park.  The water is a beautiful shade of blue green, there is barely a ripple across the calm lagoon.  There is something dangerous roaming in the depth of the waters, but not a trace of it is seen.  I sit in a cramped seat, and all around me is a sea of phones being held on high as the audience is in a buzz.  A staff member is explaining about the animal over the arena speakers, as my eyes continue to seek any sign beneath the surface.  Suddenly a dead Great White shark that is hung by its tail starts moving slowly across a wire.   The staff says,” Let’s see if it is still hungry.”  The audience anticipation grows, the arena becomes tense and suddenly the waters part with an eruption.  Inside the white spray a great head appears, surging to the sky with its maw agape.  Its huge mouth engulfs the shark.  The jaws close with a snap and it seems frozen for a moment while the water is rolling and cascading all around it and then it falls to the surface, crashing with one final explosion, covering us in a shower of water.  As I sit there stunned from the titanic spectacle, a feverish applause explodes from the crowd.  To my surprise the entire arena begins to move, and sink.  Suddenly we are viewing the beast from under the water. The animal swims by, its size is extraordinary, a bit of flesh is hanging from the corner of its mouth, and with a swish of its tail it swims off, and disappears.

What an amazing visual from Jurassic World.  The Mosasuars leaping for the great white is an iconic image from the film.  Due to the success of the film, interest in Mosasaurus has soared in a similar fashion to Dilophosaurus, Velociraptor, and Spinosaurus rise of popularity after Jurassic Park.    Of course it is not a perfect representation of the actual animal, as it has plenty of anatomical errors, but it has gotten people excited and asking questions, which only serves to help educate people about the real animals.  Jurassic World is a polarizing movie that has spawned many emotions from the people that have seen it.  The Hasbro toy line has also spawned many emotions with their toy line.  Their lack of ingenuity and quality of the products were a letdown to fans and collectors.  This brings us to the hotly anticipated Mosasaurus toy.  They made a couple of Mosasaurs toys for the film, a really small chomper toy, an even smaller blind bag mini figure, and this medium sized one.  A big Mosasaurus toy would have been great, unfortunately this was not to be and the Mosasaurs vs. submarine is what we get.

About the toy:  The Mosasaurus vs submarine pack is interesting as no submarine was seen or used in the film.  They should have used a Pteranodon, which would have matched the movie, and been fun to play with.  Alas, they instead made a cheap toy sub.  I am not going to spend much time on the sub and the small diver, but if you have kids, it is useful during play time, and it is actually a good toy for small kids.

First thing that strikes me on the Mosasaurus is the paint job.  A dark blue teal top that blends nicely with a lighter blue teal underneath.  The belly is a cream color and the mouth is a dull pinkish red.  The colorization looks really nice.  The paint application is really good, except “sigh,” some run off on the teeth.  I guess you can’t get everything.  The eyes are painted cat like, with a small sliver of yellow.

The figure is sculpted with its head looking up as if it is checking the surface for its next meal or shark snack.  The rest of the body is straight.  The tail is curved as if it is being propelled through the water.  The sculpt really isn’t that bad even though it is not quite up to date with fossil evidence.  It is textured with visible scales on the head, and on the flanks but they do not line up scientifically with diamond shaped scales and keeled scales that Mosasaurus most likely had on their bodies.  On the head of the toy there is a bony ridge above the eyes and runs most of the length of the skull.  There are also two nostril slits on top of its head before the eyes.  The mouth opens really wide and is full of different sized teeth, but it is missing the pterygoid secondary teeth.  There is also a small tongue in the back but it is not forked.

Along the body there is a dorsal crest the runs the length of the body and down the tail.  This might look cool, but again scientifically, they did not have them.  The end of the tail has a small crescent shaped fluke which is line with current evidence.  The front flippers are thicker but shorter than the rear flippers.  On the left side are the dreaded screw-holes.  On the right side is the sliding dino damage wound.  The seam lines between the head and body are visible, and in the tail as well, but they are tied to the gimmick, and are not overly distracting to the overall sculpt.

The articulation on this figure isn’t that good, but that’s ok, due to the fact that this toy is all about the gimmick.  If you pull the front flippers the mouth will open and the tail will move up.  If you fully pull the flipper up the mouth will snap shut.  The action is smooth and works really well.  The rear flippers can also be rotated fully around.  The dino damage is in the form of plastic sliding flap.  I have heard some people complain about it, since it only goes half way up when touched; I think it is great idea since I do not like the huge gaping wounds.  When the flap is touched the skin slides half way up to show an ugly wound underneath.  It is red muscle and some bones.

Playability:  It is a fun toy for kids.  Even the cheap submarine has some simple, yet fun, gimmicks for kids to enjoy, including a decent net firing gun.  Ok the net is lame, but it is a flying projectile which kids love.  As for the Mosasaurus itself, the biting gimmick is easy for kids to use and it works really well.  In fact kids (or adults) can have fun pretending the Mosasaurus is jumping out of the water and dragging I-Rex or any other animal back into the water.  In fact the Indominus Rex from the vs. Gyro Sphere set might not scale up perfectly together when compared to the movie, but you can still recreate the end of the Jurassic World with retaliative ease.

Overall:  I fully recommend this toy for kids as the entire play set is safe, functional, and fun.  As for collectors, the submarine is useless, where as the Mosasaurus is actually cool and rather nice, even with the screw holes.  The biting feature works well, and is fun to use.  I think the colors are pleasing, and it is painted rather neatly, except for the teeth.  As a bonus you can keep the dino damage covered if you do not like seeing a gaping wound.  If you are looking for scientific accuracy, you are looking in the wrong place as you will not find it with this toy.  This is one of the better toys from the Hasbro Jurassic World line, if you like how it looks, it is worth a chance.