Belloq (Ceremonial Outfit)

If Indiana Jones had one totally memorable nemesis, it would be Rene Belloq.  The guy takes the fertility idol from Indy, almost gets to the Ark before Indy, tries to schmooze his girl, and then takes the Ark from him. Twice.  That adds up to significant foe.  However, he's not much of an action star.

In the vintage Kenner line, there was a mail away offer for Belloq in his ceremonial robes from the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."  That figure was in addition to the another Belloq in his white archaeology togs.

You have to wonder if some of the demise of the modern Indiana Jones line was just poor choices in the order they brought characters out.  As the the sole Belloq in the modern line, the ceremony version just seems like a bad choice.  Sideshow recognized this, and made their figure in his white bar suit.(Check out some of Sideshow's great Indy Items here: )

While a nice nod to Vintage line, The white suit or desert outfit would have made a far better choice for an initial Belloq.  Or better yet, Pith Helmet Belloq from the opening of Raiders.  Indy fans would have dodged poison darts to get one of those.  This version of Belloq would have been better in a wave with Melty Face Toht (See bottom picture) and Dietrich.  Ah well, it's not be, cherie.

That being said they did a pretty good job executing this figure.  He looks like Belloq did at the end of the film.  But as with every figure there's some good and bad.

Let's start with the good.  The texture and paint on the body of this figure are top notch.  All the little x's look good as do the stripes on the various cloth pieces.  The robes have a bit of texture to them that convey the richness of the cloth.  The breast plate looks good.  I didn't check the film to make sure it matched exactly, but it'd be close enough for the diorama builders. There are twelve jewels (12 tribes of Israel) which is accurate, I'm just not sure on the colors. 

The robes flow nice covey a a sense of the body underneath.  There is a bit extra removed under the arms to allow slightly more movement.  This doesn't fully work, however.   His arms really don't fit close to his side, but they may not have with all those robes on.  You have to wonder, with all of the care taken for the robes and ornamentation, what's with the Dockers and Dr. Martens underneath?  just seems like sandals would be more appropriate.  But I digress.

My least favorite part of this figure is the eyebrows. I almost didn't get him because of them.  However, out of the package, they seem slightly better than in for some reason.   His eyes are also painted a touch large. 

A slight annoyance is the size of his hands.  To me they seem a little large, but that just might be me.

Belloq come with one accessory and one relic.  For his accessory, the Frenchman gets his action staff.  Okay, maybe not action, but ceremonial.  The staff looks like the one in the film.  It's got some lion heads at the top and some sort of fitting at the bottom.  Overall, not a spectacular piece, but a needed one for this figure.

While his legs are virtually useless, Belloq has jointed ankles.  I have to wonder if some of the expense of these figures could have been kept down without out superfluous articulation and the extra relics.  I'd have rather had more cheaper figures with less.  It would have been easier to pass up some of the initial wave quality issues if they had been a little easier on the wallet.

Belloq comes with the requisite relic.  In this case the fertility idol from the opening sequence of Raiders.  This is good choice for Belloq, but would have been so much sweeter with a Pith Helmet version of Indy's dark shadow.  As far as the relics go, this one is my favorite of the ones I have.  But what am I going to do with it?  None of the relics are really in scale with the figures.  Unless I'm going to find a small printers shadow box to display them in, they will gather dust in a drawer.  Again, you got to wonder why  Hasbro chose to include a capsule toy with each figure instead of lowering the price point, or giving an extra accessory.  (I'm thinking a BAF of one of the tall Anubis figures in the Well of Souls would have rocked.  Imagine how many multiples figures fans would have snapped up to make a full diorama. )