Revenge of the Fallen Breakaway Toy Review

in 2009, Action Figure Review, Autobot, Revenge of the Fallen

Revenge of the Fallen

General Information:
Release Date: May 2009
Price Point: $11.99 (varies depending on retailer)
Accessories: None


Text from
Serving in an army of robots tied to the ground makes BREAKAWAY unique. He is one of the very few among the elite AUTOBOT flyers, and he is unmatched for speed in a straight line. While other pilots focus on aerial acrobatics that confound the enemy, BREAKAWAY is content to speed over a fight at seemingly impossible velocity, releasing bombs and missiles that strike their targets before the thunderous boom of his passage can catch up.

Team up with this faithful ally and get ready to take on DECEPTICON forces! In robot mode, check out this super-cool AUTOBOT soldier’s spinning gatling cannon! Then, with a few twists and turns, change the robot figure to fighter jet mode and gear up for lots of high-“flying” adventure!

Detailed robot-to-vehicle figure features MECH ALIVE gearing for a spinning gatling cannon in robot mode! Ages 5 and up.

It's no surprise that military vehicles are ever-present in the live action Transformers film universe. Military vehicles made perfect disguises for the Decepticons in the first movie, and now "Revenge of the Fallen" begins to even up that score with an Autobot who transforms into a military jet: Breakaway. This is a new character and as of the time I'm writing this review, it is uncertain as to whether he'll appear in the movie or not. He does appear in the Activition video game for the movie however. It should be noted that a variant of Breakaway is floating around out there with a dark brown color scheme. This review covers the more commonly available lighter color scheme.

Vehicle Mode:
As I look at Breakaway and read his profile from the packaging, I'm struck with a bit of deja vu and nostalgia all at the same time. His profile identifies him as unique among the ground based Autobots, and in that sense he reminds me a lot of the Aerialbots, the first team of Autobots exclusively made up of fliers. Since there were a whole bunch of "off-screen" Autobots released as Target exclusives in 2007 that were fliers, you've got to wonder just how "unique" Breakaway is. However, it can be said he is the first Autobot flier to actually represent a real life military jet. In this case, Breakaway transforms into a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. Breakaway's sculpt has many of the features of the F35 including:

  • The overall shape of the jet with its straight edged wings and angled vertical stabilizers and somewhat short nosecone.
  • On the sides of the nose cone are straight edges that come out from the center body runing to the top of the jet.
  • Breakaway has the distinctive single booster in the back, just like the F35.
  • The air intakes on the sides of the vehicle angle at the top and then sweep down at a sharp angle.

There are hints of the robot mode peeking through on the top of this form (the bottom is a given) including machine gun parts in the center of the jet and the robot head peeking out inside the cockpit. He has several small details including smaller circles on his wings and raised ovals on the ends of the wings representing lights. He also has landing gear sculpted onto the bottom of the vehicle. Overall it's a cool sculpt that represents the F35 very well.

Breakaway is cast in four plastic colors: clear plastic, green, metallic light blue and metallic light brown. Metallic light brown makes up most of the body, with the cockpit cast in translucent clear plastic and bits of the robot mode showing on the undercarriage in metallic light blue and green. His paint applications are done up in brown, light green, silver and olive green. Brown is used on either side of the section leading to the cockpit. The two shades of green are found on the wings, where they make up angled camo patterns on the wings and rear stabilizers. Silver is used on the edges of the wings and vertical stabilizers.

Transformation to Robot Mode:

  1. Push the landing gear back so it is against the light green part on the underside of the vehicle mode.
  2. Swing the robot legs down.
  3. Swing each robot heel piece back, and then swing down the robot toes.
  4. Swing the wing/air intake sections on the sides up and forward.
  5. Split the middle of the jet and swing the robot arms out to the sides.
  6. Swing the nosecone piece down and swing the rear half of the cockpit cover back.
  7. Swing the rear section of the air intakes/hinges down and rotate the wings in the back.
  8. Swing the rear of the vehicle mode up and use the hook on it to clip against the back of the robot.

Robot Mode:
It's interesting what characteristics you can ascribe to a character based on their alternate form. It's easy to think "He transforms into a jet? That means he's going to be ultra sleek and cool looking!", and while Breakaway is arguably cool and sleek in some ways, what surprised me was how the designers added a couple elements to make him more "cute" than "cool". Overall, he has a very unique robot mode. Sure most jet-mode Transformers wind up with wings on their back and cockpits on their chest, but not quite in this configuration. The way the panels are arranged and the parts configure on his body, it fits in well with the movie aesthetic where panels and parts don't just fold out of the way or swing back, they seem to swing back, hang a left, run around in a circle and fall off a cliff. The beauty of this is that his transformation is deceptively simple, but the result is a fascinating looking robot. Instead of being sleek and thin in robot mode, the way his wings and jet parts are configured give him a bulky, powerful appearance. This is reinforced by his legs, which are rather thick and have jagged panels sticking out to the sides. The thicknesso f his legs surprised me since this is a jet mode Transformer we're talking about, but I guess I'm letting my judgement get clouded by the chicken legged Starscream.

Where the designers threw in some "cute" factor in this figure are the head, hands and feet. His head looks like a robot face with a oxygen mask (complete with tubes on the sides) over the mouth. His eyes are circles with a slanted panel on top, giving him an almost Wall-E esque appearance that makes you think more "Awww" than "Death dealing robot from the sky". His hands are sculpted into a friendly, open palmed position (interestingly with four fingers, what is it with movie Transformers and never having five fingers?). Finally, his feet aren't typical robot feet made out of triangles or rectangles. Instead, they're cute looking toes that look like they're made out of angular patterns. It's a fascinating design choice. Just as some sculpts such as Scout Class Ransack scream "evil", this sculpt screams "good guy". I suppose if you change the head sculpt that could all change, but as it is, this figure definitely would get recognized as an Autobot on sight.

Most of the detailing on this figure is concentrated in the arms and mid-body. The arms each have circular and line details sculpted into them. Breakaway has a "Mech Alive" feature where if you rotate his arms out or in, you see a drum of machinery inside turning. It's a very simple effect, but it does the trick in adding a dimension of life to the figure. The machine gun on his right arm is nicely sculpted, complete with long tube segments and a band at the base. The middle of the body has details ranging from circles to triangular shapes while his legs have circular and hinge details on the sides.

Breakaway's colors carry through from the vehicle mode, but we get to see a lot more light blue plastic and the green plastic. These two colors make up smaller parts of the body. The light blue plastic is used for the shoulders, gun, feet and parts of the waist and legs while the green is used on tiny parts such as the ankles and the elbow hinge. Paint detailing is found on his arms where beige is used on the outer parts of the upper arms. Surprisingly that's really it in terms of newly revealed paint decos.

Breakaway has sixteen points of articulation in this mode. Due to the way he transforms, he doesn't have waist articulation. What's odd is that if you undo the clip on his back, he can turn at the waist. I'm not sure what happened there with the design, especially when you don't need to turn his waist to transform the figure. His head is stuck in the cockpit, so that can't move as well. Still, he does have four points of articulation on each arm and four in each leg. His shoulders and hips are ball joints, so he has a good range of articulation. His weapon also has articulation of sorts. If you push the gear on the top of the weapon, the barrel spins. I like the way this looks since it acts almost like another "Mech Alive" feature.

Final Thoughts:
Breakaway is one fun toy. It has a very unique and distinctive look that will appeal to some and cause shivers in others (and not the good kind). I'll let you decide which camp you fall into. I personally didn't like the weird feet at first, but taken as a whole, this really is an interesting and fun figure and I do recommend it.