Dark of the Display Case: DotM Deluxe Ratchet

Soldiers are not the only thing needed on the field of war. You also need scouts, mechanics and, most importantly, field medics. In the Transformers franchise, this role is played by Ratchet. While he mainly stays constant from series to series, with primarily white and red colors and turning into an ambulance, the movie version of Ratchet turns into a light green search and rescue vehicle. Despite the change in appearance his function as chief Autobot medic has been kept in tact across multiple universes. So does this deluxe version of movie Ratchet do the character's justice?

Vehicle Mode:

Ratchet transforms into a modified Hummer H2 outfitted for search and rescue operations. Yes, he's also a bright shade of green. The new paint job he's sporting is actually much better then his previous look, which consisted of a yellowish green paint scheme. The new combination of a bright lime green and a white stripe looks so much better. This coming from someone who didn't like it all that much on first sight. The size of the vehicle mode itself is questionable. In the actual movie it's bigger then Bumblebee and just as tall as Ironhide. Here, while he is a bit bulkier then 'Bee, he's much smaller then your typical Voyager Ironhide. On the flip side, though, he scales well with the deluxe Ironhide and Voyager Optimus Prime molds and is much more screen accurate then the previous deluxe Ratchet. Overall it looks really good, despite it's small stature.

Transformation:

Ratchet's transformation is surprisingly involved in the beginning, but mellows out towards the end. Starting out you have to do things such as "breaking" the side doors and panels and rotating the midsection of the hood 180 degrees to reveal the head. Afterwards, though, is very straight forward and simple to figure out. This is the type of transformation design I love. It's innovative and interesting while not being too frustrating or annoying. In the end you'll have yourself a pretty spot-on looking Ratchet.

Robot Mode:

Ratchet's robot mode looks very good. The original, and continuously repainted, '07 Voyager mold was too bulky and blockish to be a really good representation of the character and the previous deluxe mold, while good, did not have an accurate vehicle mode. This Ratchet takes the positives of its predecessors and combines them, creating a fantastic toy. The articulation in the shoulder is amazingly well done, using an elongated rod to reach into the socket joint located near the neck area. Despite how recessed the joint is it still functions wonderfully. The only major downside to the figure is it's height. In robot mode he stands slightly taller then Bumblebee, by about 2 or 3 centimeters, but is completely dwarfed by Voyager Ironhide when he should only be about an inch or so taller. It's because of this that I reach a crossroads. Do I forgo scale in order to use this great figure or do I go to the overly bulky and tall Voyager repaint? In my case, I decided to make deluxe Ratchet an exception due to how good he is. This may be a turn-off for others though, so keep that in mind when deciding whether to purchase him or not.

Accessories:

Ratchet's MechTech weapon is a Cybertronian tommy gun-like weapon. It's very wide, with an ammo drum taking up most of its dimensions. If there's one thing you can't say, it's that this isn't a unique-looking weapon. It's only really problem is it's strange shape, but you quickly get used to it after seeing what its second mode is. Pulling the lever on the top of the gun will deploy a spinning saw blade, Ratchet's signature melee weapon! Even cooler is that the blade has a gear piece on it's connection point to go along with the piece inside, so when you deploy the blade it comes out spinning. This is definitely one of the best MechTech accessories in the line so far.

Verdict:

The verdict on Ratchet comes down to one thing; are you a scale whore or are you not a scale whore? Ratchet is considered one of the best movie deluxes to date for numerous reasons, but his height can be a total turn-off if you'd rather keep your movie cast at roughly the same scale. As someone who tries to keep scale prominent in his movie collection, the quality of this toy made me turn my head at it just this once. If size is not an issue then you have no excuse not to pick this marvelous medic up.

Ok, so that's been 3 Autobots in a row. To be honest, I'm getting sick of this goody-goody crap. Time to pull a 180 and focus on some of the bad bots of DotM....