The sixth-scale Harley Quinn from Hot Toys is here to add a pop of color to your display shelf. The Margot Robbie miniature is a remarkable likeness of the actress’ look in “Suicide Squad” complete with screen-accurate clothing and a variety of fun accessories. But buying a Hot Toy can be one hell of an investment so, before you buy, let Batman News give you an up-close look at everything this premium-quality figure has to offer…
UNBOXING
As with any Hot Toys figure, the box is anything but throwaway packaging. This highly stylized box flaunts cool, colorful artwork sporting detailed illustrations highlighting Harley herself and, if you look closely, you’ll even see Batman riding atop Joker’s car. The playful packaging displays a dessert motif with dripping ice cream, candy canes, and cupcakes as well as a subtly embossed diamond pattern for a fun presentation you won’t want to hide in storage.
Underneath the box’s outer sleeve is a two-piece cover with credits list printed on the front and divided by a center tab pull just like we saw with the Purple Coat Joker figure. Pulling the tab allows both ends to flip back and reveal Harley and her accessories encased in clear plastic. Each item has its own molded compartment so nothing rattles around during shipping and there is a thick cardboard backdrop with two equally dense supports nestled in here as well. This backdrop features two notches on each side that plug into holes in the wedge-shaped uprights.
While Joker’s backdrop featured more chaotic graffiti, Harley’s backdrop showcases a neat tattoo theme comprised of a giant heart, rose, and baseball bat arranged in a sort of floating bouquet set against a “Welcome to Belle Reve” canvas. I love that Hot Toys is including backdrops more often, but my complaint is the same as with the Joker’s backdrop: for an expensive figure like this, Hot Toys should’ve opted for hard plastic supports.
CONTENTS
The Harley Quinn Sixth Scale Collectible Figure
- New head sculpt with detailed likeness of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad
- Detailed hair sculpture with movable ponytails
- Movie-accurate facial expression
- Hand-painted makeup, skin texture, tattoos
- Over 30 points of articulation
- Approximately 29 cm tall (with high heels)
- Eight interchangeable hands:
– One pair of relaxed hands
– One pair of gun holding hands
– One pair of bat holding hands
– One gripping right hand
– One open left hand
Costume
- One red, blue and white colored tee top
- One “Property of Joker” jacket
- One red and blue colored bra
- One shoulder holster
- One pair of red and blue colored hot pants
- One black belt and gold colored embossed patterns
- One pair of stockings revealing the tattoos on lower body
- One pair of black, white, and red colored high heels
Accessories
- One baseball bat
- One mallet (exclusive to Sideshowtoy.com)
- One revolver pistol
- Two speed loaders
- One silver-colored handbag
- One “PUDDIN” neck choker
- Two gold colored bracelets
- Two purple colored leather-like bracelets
- Suicide Squad-themed figure stand with character nameplate and movie logo
- Backdrop with two wedge-shaped supports
REVIEW
As you can see from the photos, the resemblance is stunning. The sculpt and paint application is magnificent, perfectly capturing the likeness of Margot Robbie. There’s so much life in those glossy eyes, the skin tone is natural, and I love the little streaks of red and blue makeup running down her cheeks. The laughing, mouth-agape expression slightly limits what you can do with your display, but I really like the energy it adds to the figure and the variety it brings to a Hot Toys display shelf typically filled with scowling tough-guy faces. Even the teeth and gums look realistic. Just peer into the mouth and you’ll see careful sculpting was performed on every molar, now that’s the very definition of painstaking detail! That said, I’ll always say every Hot Toys figure should come with a second head sculpt. A neutral expression or simply a sly smirk would have been fantastic. In fact, a second sculpt featuring messier hair and soot marks on the face like we saw in the latter half of the film would have been perfect.
Rather than use fabric hair like the Dark Knight Rises Selina Kyle or the recent Wonder Woman figures, Hot Toys opted for plastic hair. Apparently, fabric hair would have stuck out a bit too far when styled as ponytails and grown increasingly difficult to manage over time. The plastic pigtails look fine and they swivel on a ball joint so you can articulate them however you like, which is nice. Just be careful not to bend them too harshly at the joint or else you could risk tearing the plastic at its narrowest point.
I consider the head sculpt to be flawless, but how about that bod? The all-new, specially developed body comes incredibly close to matching every detail of Robbie’s frame except I think the toy might have a tiny bit more thigh muscle and butt. Hardly noticeable variations, really. The painted skin looks as lifelike as what we saw applied to the face and it’s decorated with a screen-accurate tattoos as well. Even tattoos you never saw unobstructed in the movie! Pull the collar down a tad and you’ll see the entire “Daddy’s Lil Monster” tattoo at her shoulder. Lowering the hot pants reveals a bizarre tramp stamp featuring a pair of eyes and the phrase “I’m Watching.”
Wrist pegs feature a new design possessing offset separation for a more articulate swivel, but really it just makes life difficult when you want to swap out hands. Harley comes with a variety of different hands for achieving your desired pose, but popping them off these pegs will often cause the peg itself to detach. It won’t break, but it’s a headache having to remove the separated peg from the hand and attach it back to the wrist every single time. The hands themselves are decent sculpts except for the open grip, which is a tad unnatural. Paint application on the rings and fingernails is okay, but could have been better. Especially when every other detail from the waist up is so well defined, which brings us to the clothing.
Her costume is spot-on. Every frayed edge and stitch mark is represented, and it’s perfectly tailored to hug every curve and contour. There’s actually a bra underneath the shirt, but the shirt is tailored at the waist so well that removing the garment could severely stretch or even rip the top. And for what? So you can see bewbs? There are cheaper ways to see bewbs that buying a $250 collectible, bro!
The only detail of her costume that will be noticeably different in a side-by-side film still vs. toy comparison is that the belt sits too high on her hips because it was made just a bit too tight to fall to the middle of the hot pants.
As far as articulation goes, you’d expect Harley to be quite limber. A figure capable of performing splits or high kicks, but this model can’t even sit down properly. Unfortunately, while the stockings on her legs look excellent, they also limit movement a great deal. Her stockings are real fabric material that can wrinkle or rip if you’re not careful. Bending the knees causes unsightly wrinkles to appear in her stockings and creates the look of sagging skin. And if you can’t bend the knees without damaging the costume or making the costume look unappealing, what’s the point of having those joints? One can’t help but wonder why Hot Toys didn’t simply make each leg into one solid, seamless piece so Harley could have had natural-looking knees. After all, the visible knee joints are the one thing about the body that breaks the illusion here. Otherwise the legs look terrific! I like that the stockings are genuine and that care was taken to hand-paint tattoos on the skin underneath, but this spectacular attention to detail stops at the shins.
Despite having rather obvious knee joints, the figure has all the trappings of a premium-quality collectible. The boots are the only element of Harley Quinn that is truly beneath Hot Toys’ usual standards. Sure, from a normal viewing distance you’ll never notice. And who cares about shoes? But lean in and you’ll see terrible paint application on boots that are a single piece of molded plastic rather than a mixed media design that would’ve looked more true to life. The worst detail is the red trim, which isn’t neatly applied at all, but blobby in parts and faint in others. From the average viewing distance, it’s okay. But when you spend this kind of money, you expect precision. Oh! And the actual packaging of the boots was nerve-wracking as well. As you can see from the photos, a thin layer of plastic is placed between boot and stocking. The only way to remove it is to take off the boots, remove the plastic, and put the boots back onto the pegs. You’ll risk wrinkling the stockings here so be EXTRA careful. If you get wrinkles, don’t panic and gently massage the fabric back into a more presentable position.
Accessories abound. Hot Toys did an awesome job of packaging lots of trinkets with Harley and Purple Coat Joker. I particularly dig the hand cannon, which features a rotating cylinder with LOVE and HATE labels alternating on each flat edge. It’s a shame I shoved the gun into the holster so you can barely see it. The “piece of rubble” accessory seems a little useless, but it adds some extra character to the display base. The bat and exclusive hammer are the most important extras and you’ll have to debate which one you want to display– they both look great. The bat doesn’t look like real wood (neither does the mallet) but even though it doesn’t have a natural wood grain effect I appreciate the detailed scribbling on the barrel.
Most of Harley’s accessories are actually wearable, not just weapons to hold. The choker, spiked bracelets, purse, and YES SIR bracelets look exactly how they should, but some are easier to throw on than others. The choker slides onto the neck once you remove the figure’s head, but the bracelets? You’ll have to deal with the troublesome wrist pegs and the purple bracelets are very tight and intended to slide high up on the forearm. They’re so tight that it’s a foregone conclusion they’ll ultimately stain the arm purple, but if you want a movie-accurate look you’ll need those AND the spikes. Putting on both and sticking the hand back on the peg can be a nightmare, but the end results look nice. The silver purse we saw her steal midway through the film has a lengthy chain, but the highly reflective bag isn’t actually functional and cannot open.
To complete the screen-accurate look you’ll want to put Harley’s jacket on. After all, the jacket-less look complete with dirt, grime and battle-damage came later in the film. The jacket has a terrific sheen, fits great, has excellent embroidery, and includes a shoulder wire so you can manipulate the outerwear to look exactly how you want it. Just make sure you put the bracelets on AFTER the jacket or you’re gonna have problems. And don’t worry about staining Harley’s arms, the inner lining stops where the arms begin. Personally, though, I like the no-jacket look best so that’s what I went for. Getting the speed loaders into the holster was a pain, though. They’re very tiny.
OVERALL
I have a lot of dark, glowering collectibles on my shelf so I absolutely love what this figure has brought to my personal display. The almost-eerie likeness, the mirthful expression, and all that color makes it a real show-stopper. The only negatives I have to say are in regards to the limited leg movement, those obvious knee joints, and the poorly painted (on up-close examination) boots. Otherwise the sculpt, paint, and clothing are among Hot Toys’ best yet. It’s an outstanding collectible and a must own for any die-hard Margot Robbie fan. Harley Quinn is available at SideshowToy.com (click link for more details) and costs $249.99, but with Sideshow’s three-month payment plan you can purchase the figure for as little as $75 per month.
