Transformers TLK Berserker review

Berserker did not do anything whatsoever in The Last Knight apart from appear in one scene, say one line, and one name reference by Megatron. While I cringe at a lot of anti-Movie dorks and their "ThE bAyFoRmZ hAv BeArLeE ScReNtIeM" bitchfests, this is one of the few exceptions I'm making, along with some of Megatron's crew and Blitzwing (didn't think I wouldn't make a jab at that Bumblebee film, eh?). It's also annoying when Berserker and the Dinobot repaints would warm pegs badly during the run of The Last Knight's toyline. It's like he was supposed to do more, but whoever edited the movie did as poor of a job as the theatrical cut of Suicide Squad. Berserker would later be reused in the Studio Series line as Crowbar and weirdly get repainted as Crankcase (despite CC having Berserker's design), but neither use of the mold didn't warm pegs as badly. So we already took a look at Crowbar in the first-ever wave of Studio Series figures, why not we take a look at Berserker? I'll mention that it'll be a shorter review since it's not entirely different from Crowbar aside from the robot mode retooling.

Here is Berserker in his vehicle mode. It's the same black Chevrolet Suburban seen with Berserker, with good proportions and decent details used to be accurate with the real vehicle. I appreciate the navy blue windows, red sirens, gold emblem for the Chevy logo, and the headlights painted in white. Some may find the tires a little oddly placed, though I don't like them as much as I do the gray hinge present in-between the doors. Otherwise, this vehicle's no different from its retool, Crowbar, aside from the lack of dreads from the back.

This is how I store the spikes in vehicle mode. You couldn't do that with Crowbar to my knowledge, and I really don't know why since the other method's kind of annoying.

The transformation is slightly different from Crowbar, as the lower legs hinge forward to give the overall robot look a little more of a bestial appearance, the windows are what hinge close to the forearms, and there are little shoulder spikes on the back instead of dreads. The robot mode on this figure is certainly a Crankcase homage, though the colors are slightly different from what Crankcase has. There's more gray than Crankcase's black, a few red accents are there (notably with the X on the chest), and the dreads are silver. Design wise, aside from the exposed wheels and the back kibble, this figure doesn't look too bad, even if it's not quite as refined.

The headsculpt is pretty much Crankcase, albeit with dreads a little shorter than the norm. At least the headsculpt looks pretty good, even if there's not much in terms of coloring (i.e. the lack of the aforementioned gold dreads).

The articulation is pretty standard for a Deluxe. Head is on a ball joint as well as a neck hinge. Shoulders move front and back, in and out, the biceps swivel, and the elbows bend. The hands can bend inwards, though you have to alter the kibble somewhat. Hips move front and back as well as in and out (but the movement's not too hot with the wheels on the hips), the thighs swivel, and the knees bend.

Here he is with his spikes. For a robot comparison, here he is next to the DOTM Crankcase figure. You can tell how much more involved the original Crankcase figure is compared to the TLK Berserker figure, even if it's not necessarily a bad thing (as it's not like the TLK figure is extremely simplified)

Here he is next to Crowbar, his retool. It's funny going from the Studio Series retool to reversing back with the TLK figure, even if Berserker came out first. Yeah, you can tell how far the retooling game has gone between these two, as it's more than just a head swap.

 Their spikes remain the same between both releases, and the same goes for my opinion on Berserker. Despite being a pegwarmer and having little to do in the movie, this guy isn't a bad toy at all. I feel that had there be a little bit more color variety and would be repainted as the more appealing Crankcase, then you'd get a pretty good figure. For now, I'm going to repaint another copy of this guy into Crankcase and think of some genericon for the CrowCase repaint in the Studio Series line.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐