Mine arrived today. First of all, I need to give props to Mondo for the unbelievably smooth shipping experience considering they used DHL, I was expecting to go through a horrible experience with customs and DHL but it arrived very fast with no import fees whatsoever. Now onto the figure.
I really dig the box, the pop-up gimmick works for me but that's probably because it appeals to my artistic side. As others have said it's one of the better aspects of the release. Upon opening it I was immediately struck by the intense smell of the paint Mondo used on this, it's very strong, in fact I can still smell it as I write this. Then I finally began unwrapping the box's contents.
Norris's head-thing is really nice, the legs do articulate fairly easily but only where they bend, they don't rotate or anything of the sort. It's my favorite accessory of the entire package.
The Dog-thing however is a bit of a let down. They painted it too red, so it ends up looking like something that could be on a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.
Inspecting the accessories like the flamethrower, shotgun and so forth, the paint is very "toyish" for lack of a better word, but I didn't expect it to be on the level of a high-end 1/6 release looking at Mondo's previous releases at this scale. The base is just a simple black base, the waist grabber was useless as I couldn't get it to properly hold onto Mac, it seemed too short, so I ended up switching it for a crotch grabber.
Then I moved on to Mac. I like the sculpts, the likeness holds up in hand. The paint is actually not as bad as many feared, I was surprised by the quality of the printed eyebrows and eyelashes and how well the blended the beard with the rest of the sculpt. What I don't like is how dark they made the hair and beard, it almost feels like they forgot to give the hair a wash with a lighter shade of brown so it sort of just looks like a big blob on his head.
I forgot to take a picture of it but the frosted sculpt is alright even though I don't care more much for it. As I said when this was announced, I'd rather have had a sculpt with the goggles and his iconic hat.
Now, echoing what Asta and others have said, the body and jacket are the weakest parts of this release. The body being the worst, it simply sucks. The arms are single-jointed which severely limit the poses you can do with this guy, just trying to get him in an aiming pose with the flamethrower was a nightmare. The hands are very poor in quality and detail too, the gloves are useless since they're stuck in a relaxed pose. My figure also had brown scratches on the neck because of the beard so watch out for that.
Speaking of the flamethrower, the flame effect (also very "toyish" in appearance) is really heavy, so it always ends up pointing towards the ground, it's not a big deal if you want him torching Norris's head but don't expect Mac to be able to point it higher than that, especially with the stock body.
The jacket is made of pleather, which is a shame, it's also very bulky and a bit too short. In short, it's exactly what was advertised.
I do like that the buttons aren't glued on it but properly studded, so there's no worries about losing one of them when messing with the figure. The figure does look better without the jacket but considering what I paid for it I might as well just get my money's worth and have him with the jacket on before it inevitably starts falling apart.
This is the pose I ended up settling on after trying to fight the body and jacket for a while.
For my closing thoughts, the final product isn't much of a step down from what was put up for pre-order, which wasn't anything astounding to begin with, of course could this figure have been better? Yes. Am I glad to have it though? Also yes.
This has been a grail for me for a long, long time, it's hard to believe it took this long for a mass produced Macready to make his way onto the market, for what it's worth I think Mondo nailed the most important part, which is the likeness. I believe a professional repaint could really bring the sculpts to life.
As far as it's shortcomings, mainly the jacket and body, there's ways to improve on it, as Asta, Magpie and other collectors have shown but those two things in particular really drag the entire figure down.
Overall I'm happy to finally have a 1/6 Macready on the shelf after all this time, it's not that beautiful custom by Kjun and perhaps one day a brand like InArt will give us a more accessible high-end offering but until then, Mondo's Mac gets the job done.