I earlier praised Hasbro for striking a balance between form and function with the VC116 Rey (Jakku) figure.  With this VC117 Kylo Ren figure, form was heavily prioritized to the detriment of the figure.  What Hasbro delivered here is a striking looking figure that, due to a few unfortunate limitations, is not sufficiently elevated above 5POA statuary when considering the price point.  This is despite having all the ingredients that should go into a homerun figure.  Let’s start with the biggest and most easily identified problem:  the head.  Despite only donning one costume for two movies, Kylo Ren wears it many different ways, and that mostly revolves around the headgear (we’re skipping the shirtlessness for the purpose of this review). 

Kylo appears helmeted with the hood up, helmeted with the hood down, and of course unmasked.  Unmasked is the most boring of these, but also the most common on-screen representation over the course of both movies.  Hoods have been problematic for action figures, and those problems don’t discriminate against scale.  Even on expensive 1:6 figures where a shaping wire is incorporated, the lay of the hood only gets “close” to looking correct.  It’s still not perfect.  In the 3.75” scale the hood problem has haunted Hasbro since time immemorial.  We’ve seen a number of techniques employed from all soft goods, to all plastic, to the hybrid approach of a soft goods robe with a removable plastic hood.  In this instance, Hasbro went with “D) None of the above”.  In a throwback to the early days of POTF2, the hood and head sculpt are one in the same.  This looks great, but configurability goes out the window, and in this case, it gets worse.  It also impacts the pose-ability. 

The head can turn maybe five degrees in each direction, and that’s probably generous.  As you would imagine, the head cannot look up or down.  It’s eyes straight ahead for this fella.  If that were the extent of the impact of the one piece hood and head, we might be able to press on, but it’s not.  It also impacts the range of motion of the left arm.  It cannot be raised over the head at all.  Kylo Ren employs numerous sword styles throughout the films, one of which is a furious two-handed overhead chop on Lor San Tekka at the beginning of The Force Awakens.  That is a difficult pose for any 3.75” scale figure, but it can’t even be approximated with this figure.  The saber cannot be raised high enough, and the head cannot be turned to coordinate with the angle of the downswing. 

This brings us to the legs.  Here I cannot so easily identify the deficiencies.  They are more vague, despite being present.  Well, there is one definitive issue:  The figure isn’t well balanced and is difficult to stand in even neutral poses.  This was noted by Mr. Nomadscout when he reviewed the first release of this figure in the Black Series.  Aside from that, I could not achieve many compelling combat stances.  Part of the reason for this is that there is a degree of mushiness in the joints, particularly in the right knee of my sample.  I can’t figure out where engaging the knee joint stops and damaging the integrity of the ball joint starts.  It doesn’t offer that positive feedback that you often get with this type of articulation.

Comparing this figure to a largely preordained 5POA figure in the open was a bit of a cheap shot.  You can achieve some dynamic poses with this figure.  There are simply not as many possible poses as I would like, and they are not as easily achieved as I prefer.  When it is in one of those poses, I have admit, the figure looks stunning.  Image 14 above is how I would choose to display mine.  It has that Samurai Jedi feel for which I’m a sucker.  The first release of this figure was scored a 6, and I am not inclined to move it from there.  We still need an “ultimate” Kylo Ren figure.  It should have swappable heads (unmasked and helmeted).  Please no removable helmets in the collector line.  The hood should also be soft goods.  I know I’m taking a gamble there since soft goods can go very wrong, but I think Hasbro is up to it these days.

I would have liked to do some more scene set-ups with this figure, but I do not own a lot of companion pieces for it.  I don’t own any Max Von Sydow figures (not even a Brewmeister Smith figure) and I do not own a Poe jacket Poe figure.  One final note:  When you say his name really fast, it sounds like Ky Loren.  I sense that Snoke comes from the Bill Parcells school of motivation through belittling.  I think he should have pointed this out to Benny Skywalker at some point to hasten his descent toward the dark side.