Even though he’s had a pretty good career, Timothy Dalton has become a bit of a cult icon because of his inability to break through. Poor Dalton was even James Bond for a moment, but for whatever reason Dalton has never become the big star that by all rights he should have been. In the 1980 Flash Gordon film he was cast as Prince Barin, one of the oldest characters in the Gordon mythos. Oldest in the sense that Prince Barin has been a character in the Flash comics since his introduction in the 30’s.

Packaging:

One of the only real problems with burning through all your Flash Gordon reviews in a single week is that the packages become pretty boring, pretty quick. What was fresh and original just a day or two ago is old hat by now. The Wave 2 packages are even more mundane with all of them being basically the same except for the card art on the front.

There’s a great photo of Dalton as Prince Barin on the front. Unfortunately it sort of serves to show off that the head sculpt on this figure doesn’t quite capture the likeness as good as pervious figures in this series. That’s the risk you run into when you put the real actor’s face on the package.

Now that the back of the packages are all the same in Wave 2, there is definitely less to talk about here. Seen it once, you’ve seen it 1,000 times. You may notice there is also a variant Barin on the back of the package. Originally I thought he was the same figure as this one, but it would appear in addition to “battle damage” he has slightly different arms. Sadly I just don’t care enough about Barin to buy that particular variant.

Articulation:

I still have no idea what’s going on with the articulation in this line. We go from semi articulated to a statue to Prince Barin who is more articulated than anyone else in the line. What’s the rhyme or reason? Maybe Jason Lenzi from BifBangPow can stop by and tell me what the dealio is.

Barin has all the same articulation as Flash, but adds a hinge at the ankles. His articulation works fairly well, but the legs are a little limited and the ball joints in the shoulders basically work like cuts. You can get a little extra movement, but not enough to really make it count.

What this guy really needs, surprisingly, is wrist cuts. Actually I would have loved to seen wrist cuts on all the figures, but especially this one. His gloves could have hidden them well and even though he does have the elbow cuts, it’s not enough.

Sculpt:

To my knowledge no one has ever attempted a Timothy Dalton figure before. So maybe he’s one of those guys who like Harrison Ford, is hard to capture in a figure. I’m not sure, but something about this figure just isn’t quite right. He’s definitely not a terrible head sculpt, but I don’t know if someone off the street would recognize this as Dalton if you didn’t tell them it was him. Then again would a person off the street know who Timothy Dalton even is?

I’ve heard people say this is a bad sculpt, but I don’t agree with that. There is definitely some Dalton in there. It’s just not up to the standard that Ming and to a lesser extent, Flash set. But Dalton’s face is much more expressive and that’s harder to capture.

The rest of the sculpting and paint is pretty solid. The paint is a little off on one of Barin’s eyes on mine giving him a bit of a funky look. Otherwise I noticed little slop or issues. It’s not high end, but it’s not a Mattel paint job either.

He doesn’t appear to have the gigantic butt problem that Flash had either, but to be fair I didn’t manipulate him into the same poses. Partially because I forgot and also partially because I don’t want this to become “that weird blog where the guy talks about toy butts all the time”.

Accessories:

AN ACCESSORY! BY GOD AN ACCESSORY! Now what the hell is it?

It’s been a while since I watched Flash Gordon, so I don’t remember this “gun” at all. At least I think it’s a gun? It looks a bit like a cake mixer. It has a trigger on both ends? Just how in the world do you use this thing?! Whatever the case I trust BifBangPow pulled this from the movie as they’ve been very faithful to the source material.

In all fairness it’s a pretty neat looking thing anyway. I am a bit disappointed that the “battle damaged” variant comes with a whip, which seems like a cooler accessory. But cake mixers are deadly weapons on Mongo, so it’s a toss up.

Value:

This figure costs as much as anyone else. There’s nothing wrong with Barin other than his head sculpt is a little soft. I picked this guy up on sale so I have no issue with what I paid, but I will say that had he not been on sale I probably wouldn’t have gotten him. It’s nothing to do with BifBangPow’s work, but Prince Barin is pretty boring to me in the world of Vultan. Why no Vultan? Surely that would have been cheaper than paying for Dalton’s likeness, no?

Score Recap:Packaging – 7Sculpting – 7Articulation – 7Accessories – Cake Mixer GunValue – 7Overall – 7 out of 10

In terms of articulation this is the best figure in the series. In terms of accessories, thus far he’s had the biggest. In terms of sculpt, he’s the weakest I’ve reviewed so far, but he’s not bad. So why the relatively average score? He just doesn’t do much for me. Prince Barin is pretty boring as a character and there just isn’t enough here for me to say that you need this guy. If you’re collecting the whole set he’s a great addition to fill out the ranks. Unlike Ming and Flash he’s not really iconic enough and he’s not a cool figure like Klytus without knowledge of Gordon. Otherwise, unless you really need a Timothy Dalton figure, you could pass.

You can purchase this figure now from Entertainment Earth just click here:

