Jolt also provides an interesting conundrum--2007's Movie line produced a deluxe Jolt figure as well. A Decepticon repaint of Cybertron's Crosswise. He was originally supposed to be Road Hugger, and in the Universe line, but the name didn't clear legal so he became Jolt instead. And then Jolt got thrown into the ROTF film, so Hasbro had to go and make a toy of that. What's more, *that* Jolt ended up getting renamed as Dead End in some of the comics...only for Hasbro to come out with not one, but two *different* Dead End figures in ROTF. This is nuts!
But is the toy worth it? You're gonna have to keep reading to find out.
Behicle Modo!
It's a car!
Alright, alright. (That joke never gets old, though.) He's a blue Chevy Volt. A nice, darker blue--the exact kind of blue I like--which oddly looks very nice alongside the rest of the Autobots. Jolt basically completes my ROTF film Autobots cast (with the exception of the other two bikes and Jetfire), and I must say, he complements the likes of 2007's NewBee and ROTF's Sideswipe very, very well. He just looks like he fits, somehow, in vehicle mode. His roof is painted a flat black, which I would assume is the same as the actual car, but it's only in literally one shot of the movie, so it's hard to tell.
A big sticking point with the movie toys so far has been that, mostly, they avoid obvious panel lines, but Jolt is very much an exception to this. He's got a huge line down the middle of his windshield, roof and back window, as well as several curvey lines on his back window and along his rear doors. This kind of thing never bothered me too much, myself, but it does bother some other people I know. His windshield has a slight tendency to not line up perfectly straight, but a little pushing will fix that usually.
Paint matching is another big issue with this line, and with TF in general, but thankfully Jolt doesn't have much of an issue with that. All of his blue car parts are nice, dark blue plastic that is swirly in some places and not swirly in others--but it all matches in colour. The only painted part is the two halves of his rear end and trunk, and that doesn't include the bumper, which turn into his feet and are also plastic. The roof is also painted, but it's black so it's not supposed to match.
Altogether, Jolt looks alright in car mode. He's a supporting car--he's not going to catch your eye very much, but he's A Car.
Toransufurm!
Transformation is 'amazingly' simple. In contrast to the hugely complex stuff we tend to get in this line, like Rampage and such, Jolt is very easy. He's about as complex as, say, Classics Mirage or Universe Prowl. So, the kind of level you want to expect in a TF. Even on the way back, there's very little panel massaging and frustrating trying-to-line-parts-up. If transformation level is something that annoys you in TF, it's hard to go wrong with Jolt. It feels very intuitive and rewarding while also not feeling simplistic or cheaty, and in the realm of Cars That Turn Into Robots, he's still sorta-kinda unique in the way he goes about it.
Roboto Modo!
Ah, the reason we buy these things. Jolt's robot mode is...weird, and what's more, it's weird in a weird kind of way. In ROTF, we've got all kinds of unconventional robot modes--we've got guys who are giant wheels with shovel arms, we've got guys who turn into jackhammer spider crab robots, we've got motorcycle girls who turn into unicycle sex robots. (Not really, about the sex part.) Jolt, though. He's odd. He's got a big translucent chest, and the detail on it just doesn't...It doesn't say 'Transformers detail' to me, it feels more like a generic Approximation Of A Robot that we might get in, say, He-Man or something. This isn't necessarily bad, though, and I'll explain why in a second.
First up, there's something messed up with his feet--or more specifically, his toes. The instructions apparently tell you to put them vertically, which kinda makes them resemble MasterScream's feet. (I wouldn't know, I don't read the things.) Hasbro's regular stock photos have them down horizontally, which makes them look less cool, but also avoids an issue--if you put them vertically, a clippy bit for his vehicle mode ends up on the bottom of his right foot, meaning it'll always have to be slightly higher than the other. Sucks! What's even 'more' confusing is that the stock art used for the card is actually doing *both* of these--one foot is vertical, the other is horizontal. I prefer to stick with the horizontal to avoid the height issue.
One more thing is his legs. Did you ever fiddle with the 2007 film's Longarm? His legs were set up so that they could be posed as if they were digitigrade--like they appeared to be in the model for the video game--or they could be posed straight like a Regular TF. Jolt is the exact same way, except--unlike Longarm--his legs look like crap when they're Regular Legs. So push down those bits with the rear window and make them into digitigrade knees!
One more thing before I get to my main point--a lot of his kibble is oddly shaped. He's got a lot of strange curves and cuts in places that you wouldn't expect--he has two big wing kibble pieces (that don't really get in the way a whole lot) that curve off to form smaller, shorter end tips, and these cut his rear doors right in half. It's odd, and I can't imagine why they hacked his vehicle bits up this particular way--but it doesn't get in the way of anything, it's just weird. But Jolt himself is kind of offbeat, too, so it works.
In the film, Jolt's shining key and moment of glory comes in his sole real gimmick. When Jetfire sacrifices himself and tells Optimus Prime to use his parts and combine with him, Jolt uses his electric whips to fling the parts over to Prime. That's Jolt's thing, he has electrified whips. Probably because he's an electric car. Hahaaa. But! This is ROTF, so of course, the gimmick is nerfed. Jolt was supposed to have flippy whips, but now they just manually flip out on a little turny circle thing. I actually prefer this, because this gimmick just sounds kind of lame. Also, the whips don't really look like whips at all...they look like 'awesome stabby knives.' I picture Jolt flicking them out, stabbing them into some unlucky bastard Decepticon, and then 'shoving ten thousand volts of electricity through them.' Even better if he shoves both knives in and does some kind of passive current thing.
Now, I said I had a real point to Jolt, and I do, and it starts with his biggest thing that I haven't mentioned: His head! The Movieverse in general tends to give people strange head designs, but ROTF in particular is great at this, giving us the possibly-retarded heads of the Twins, and now Jolt. Jolt's got 'huge bug eyes.' The first look we had at Jolt was his FAB toy, and when I saw that, I assumed they were exaggerated for the FAB--but nope, this toy's got 'em too. They're lightpiped here, but the back of his head is covered by a big hunk of plastic behind his head (which also restricts his head articulation a little bit) so the gimmick is moot. But it brings up a point--these are big, kid-friendly eyes. Or at least, an attempt at it.
Between his face, his non-TF-like chest details, and the Chevy Volt's seemingly flagship, green-image fuel-efficiency design, Jolt doesn't seem like he's supposed to be part of ROTF's cast--he's from that part that comes 'after' the movie. Jolt is a tie-in character. He's a guy who is 'designed' (or redesigned) by humans to be a Big Friendly Kid Appeal Character. He's supposed to sell the humans on the idea that the Autobots are here to be Fwends. And he's probably a pushover as a result--*he's* Longarm's character from the first movie line, since Longarm's head and face were way too badass to be the pushover described in his techspec.
Articulation. Jolt's pretty good here. His legs aren't too terribly screwed over by their digitigradeness, and I've gotten some pretty cool leany slanty poses out of them. He's oddly got a completely useless mid-thigh swivel, too--the only time I managed to push it enough to turn it, I ended up chewing up some of the plastic on his grey leg piece, so avoid that. His shoulders are really well articulated, relying on a few transformation joints for extra awesomeness. You can get all kinds of kickass posing-with-armswords bits out of them, and he does that bit way better than I've seen Sideswipe do. 86 complained that his backpack doesn't actually clip to his back in any way, and I was originally in the same boat--but then I realized you can use that as 'another' articulation point, and give him some even more dynamic posing. If I have one complaint, it's his head--there's a big grey chunk of plastic that appears to be there for 'no reason' other than to hinder his head articulation. He can only sorta-kinda turn his head, and when he does, it's sort of always leaning forward, like Classics Mirage. It's not 'too' horrible, but it's there.
Oh, and there's mech alive. Turn his waist, gears inside his translucent chest turn. 86 was really happy with this, I'm meh on it.
Conclusion
Go out and get Jolt! He's great! Alright, in truth, he's only kind of Pretty Good. He doesn't have any real overt *flaws,* though, and in a sea of toys with cruddy transformation defects (Rampage), cruddy altmodes and gimmick-hindering articulation (Ravage), or just plain abominations (Chromia), Jolt is a pretty hard buy to beat. He's in that boat of guys who fit right alongside the 2007 movie line in their kickassery, right alongside Sideswipe.
Speaking of, Jolt just plain blends in well. It wasn't until I put him on top of my monitor that I realized I also had 2007's NewBee and ROTF Sideswipe up there as well, and the three together looked just plain great, standing there. They just 'feel' like they're part of the same line, and it kind of rules. That said, if Jolt is closer to anything, it's the later end of 2007's line, with guys like Longarm and Dropkick--except those figures usually tended to be Pretty Good with one majorly crippling flaw, like Dropkick's cruddy elbows and pliers weapon, or Longarm's gun being connected to his hand. (Mind, Longarm's issue was easily fixable, and after that he was really awesome.) Jolt, on the other hand, has no cruddy flaws that downgrade him from, "Wow, I'm glad I bought this," to, "Aww, I wish he could do This."
But yeah. I liked him! Maybe you will too! Take what I've said and make an informed decision!
Also, don't trust Hasbro's pics, they suck. Here's some good ones:
