WWE Elite #53 Alexa Bliss figure review
From her debut in NXT, Alexa Bliss has come off like a star and as a multi-time champion on both Raw and SmackDown, she’s one of the prominent characters in the WWE. That’s why for her first Elite figure Mattel couldn’t give her the basic treatment. The Elite 53 Alexa Bliss is both one of Mattel’s best and worst female figures. Let’s break it down here.
Packaging: The red and silver color scheme wore me down after years of use. Red is a little too colorful and made it easy for the figures to get lost in the backdrop particularly if they had any color in their outfit. As usual we get the two side portraits that are the same as the one on the back. Nothing exciting here at all.
Likeness: In so many ways this figure is a perfect representation of Bliss in her Harley Quinn inspired look. The hair sculpt looks dead on from exactly how she wore it. And unlike most of the Mattel female figures, Alexa has two fists so she gets bonus points for not having the slappy hand.
Mattel couldn’t sculpt all the rhinestones on the attire, but they did more than I would have assumed along the top and wristbands. Not bad. I’m assuming part the inability to reuse parts is the main reason the shorts didn’t get the same treatment.
There’s just one thing that messes up the figure. Maybe the sculptors couldn’t get the level of detail at the appropriate scale, but to accomplish the strap design, they dramatically lowered Alexa’s chest. I can’t help but think of Magda from Something About Mary when I see how droopy they made her chest. I really appreciate the effort to make the outfit so accurate, but it comes with a major price of making her look like she has an elongated torso.
Scale: Alexa is the shortest female wrestler on the roster at 5’1”. She should be dwarfed by the 5’10” Charlotte Flair and even 5’5” Sasha Banks, but she looks eye to eye with Sasha. I’d love if Mattel would just make a dedicated body for her size since Alexa has a ton of figure potential with her various looks. She’d be worth getting the unique Rey Mysterio treatment in terms of scale compared to the other female figures.
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Paint: Continuing the trend, the paint job is nearly perfect, but one element takes away a lot from the figure. First, the good.
There’s a lot of paint applications here. Alexa’s top has four alone and Mattel went with a shiny, almost metallic color to capture her look accurately. The studs are mostly painted without slop — at that scale I can cut some slack for the occasional mistake. I’m very impressed by how improved Mattel’s paint work is with hair gradient. It looks so much more natural than say the early Seth Rollins figures.
This time, the problem is the paint on the head sculpt. In fairness, Mattel actually added some eye shadow, which is something they don’t always do with the female figures. It’s just using lighter colors instead of the harsher black eye shadow makes Alexa look surprised instead of cocky. It’s a small change that would make all the difference with the figure.
Articulation: Since she’s using the Sasha Banks/AJ Lee body, Alexa has a little more articulation than most of the female figures. It’s still not good enough for submission moves. I really wish Mattel could re-engineer the female articulation especially in the Elite line.
Alexa Bliss has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- bicep
- elbow
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- waist
- hip
- thigh
- knee
- ankle
Accessories: Alexa has one accessory, but it’s the final piece of her Harley Quinn attire — the pom pom belt. It lacks the paint applications of the real thing, which was black with silver studs, but is otherwise good. Pom poms are a hard thing to make look convincingly in figure form — they look more like wigs than light, soft material — but Mattel gave it a good try.
And she also has the largely useless Build A Diorama stand. I definitely would have preferred either women’s title.
Worth it? You can get this figure now for under the standard $20 price. That’s a fair deal for a figure that has a few major issues.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Chest piece and face paint issues aside, this is a pretty close representation of Alexa’s look during this time frame. It’s so close and shows what Mattel can do when motivated even if it doesn’t completely stick the landing.
Where to get it? You could possibly still find Alexa in Walgreens or a poorly restocked Target. I’d just avoid the hassle all together and get her from Amazon at $15.30.