Art Asylum has taken their very popular mini-mates style, threw it in the blender with the characters from Middle Earth, and released the first series of figures. Actually, that's not quite true, since the first figure in this overall series was the Sauron figure released a little while ago as a Tower Records exclusive. But the two four-packs now showing up at Toys R Us are the first large scale release, and include such crucial characters as Aragorn, Legolas, Frodo, Saruman, Gandalf, Twilight Frodo and Uruk-Hai.

The Twilight Frodo and Uruk-Hai are actually 'surprise' figures. Each one is hidden from view in the package, giving you a pretty cheap thrill. Twilight Frodo comes with the Saruman, Aragorn, and Legolas set, while the Uruk-Hai comes with Gollum, Frodo and Gandalf. Each of these four packs is a Toys R Us exclusive, and sells for ten bucks.

Many additional figures can be expected, and we already have announcements of King Theoden, Wormtongue, Gimli, Sam, and even a great two pack of Elven warriors that will be an Action Figure Express exclusive.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can always reach me at mwc@mwctoys.com. If you enjoy this review, take a minute to check out my other site at Michael's Review of the Week, and let me know what you think. Now on to the review!

"Lord of the Rings Minimates - Saruman, Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, Frodo, Twilight Frodo, Gollum, and Uruk-Hai"

These first two sets of four figures each are actually Toys R Us exclusives. Two packs will be coming out next month that include all eight of these figures, plus eight new figures. Here's the part that sucks wind - each two pack will include one of these eight and one new figure, so if you pick up these exclusives now, you'll end up with eight extras.

Packaging - ***1/2
The packaging for these special four-packs shows off the three revealed characters, hiding the fourth. That's fine, since everyone with an Internet connection knew what the fourth figure was in each set nanoseconds after they hit the shelf. As long as they don't start getting random and flaky on us with this, it's no big deal.

The boxes show the cartoony, blocky designs of the characters, and incorporate them into a Middle Earth reality that fits in with their style. Some folks don't like the look, but I think if they had gone with anything more realistic, it would have clashed severely with the look and design of the mini-mates.

The packages are also nice and collector-friendly, and you can certainly pop these guys back in their plastic prisons later if you'd like. They also store easily, much more so than the traditional card back and bubble packaging.

Sculpting - ***
There's never much sculpting on mini-mates, but what is here is fairly good. Most of the figures have molded hair, and a few have additional sculpted items like capes, scabbards or robes. They aren't overly detailed, but match up with the general, simplistic design quite nicely.

I do wish that there was a bit more variance in Saruman and Gandalf, but let's face it, even in the film the white wizards looked pretty similar. Saruman also suffers from having some very restrictive clothing sculpted on, hurting his overall articulation much more than most of the figures in this set.

The figure with the least sculpting detail is Gollum, and unfortunately, the mini-mate style really fits him the least. I'll get into that further in the next section, but he's a character that suffers from not having much detail.

Of this set of eight, I think the clear winners are Aragorn and Legolas. The hair sculpts work fantastic, and the sculpting on the clothing pieces looks terrific. They translated very well into this format.

A note about scale - the Hobbits in this line are the same size as the X-men mini-mates, around 2", and they used the 3-inch body style for the large Sauron released as a Tower exclusive earlier. That means they went with a new scale for the majority of the characters, at about 2.5". While that means you can't stand Legolas next to Captain Kirk, it does mean that within the LOTR series we'll have some good variety in scale. And while the Hobbits are the same bodies as the 2-inch mini-mates, the size of the feet has changed. They had to change the feet to add the holes for the stands they included, but why they shrunk them up a bit at the same time is not obvious.

Paint - Gollum **1/2; the rest ***1/2
Speaking of Gollum, he takes a hit in the paint category. It's not that he's sloppy, but that he doesn't fit this format well at all.

All the paint ops are clean and neat, and the face details are great across the line. Sure, it's tough to really make Aragorn and Legolas look like the actors, but they still manage to make the faces look different enough to avoid a cookie cutter feel. They also managed to capture expressions that fit the characters perfectly!

But poor Gollum stands out as a figure that just doesn't work well. Perhaps it's that his design is so much different than others - he has a large head and skinny body in "reel" life, but as a minimate he ends up with a tiny head on a body identical to Frodo. Without any hair, his head likes puny next to the others, and while they tried with the paint to give him the scraggly look, the smooth, round contours of the cylindrical head ruin the attempt.

Some of the other figures sport special touches though. For example, Twilight Frodo has the outline of the ring painted on his left hand! Twilight Frodo also has a unique facial expression, appearing to be terrified. It's those type of details that can make a fun line like these even better.

The detail work on several of the figures is downright amazing, particularly Legolas, who has a very detailed tunic and boots.

Articulation - ***
These have the same articulation as any other mini-mate - neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles. I had no trouble getting them all to stand find, even though they include a few clear stands.

One of the nifty aspects of the body construction is that you can mix and match parts quite easily. Want Gollum to suddenly have a full head of hair? Pop on Frodo's! Need a cape or a robe, or even a different torso? Swap them around! You can also swap parts with other mini-mates lines, like the X-men, giving you tons of wacky combination possibilities.

Accessories - Gollum, Uruk-Hai, Saruman, Twilight Frodo ***; Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, Frodo ***1/2
I'm not counting clothing pieces as accessories here, so something like the helmet for Uruk-Hai (which is removable of course) didn't enter into the mix. The break between the figures with three stars and those with three and a half is pretty easy - those with only one, and those with two or more.

Gollum has but one, a small fish. While it makes perfect sense, and gets extra points for being unique, it's still a tad light. The Uruk-hai also has one, and it's unique (at least for the moment) - his nasty sword/axe doohickey. Saruman is also on the light side, coming with just his staff, but Twilight Frodo actually has two, Sting and it's scabbard. These are clear, to match his twilight appearance, but are technically reused from the regular Frodo.

Technically Aragorn only has two accessories, his sword and scabbard, but he gets extra points since they are unique. A note about the scabbards - they all attach to the belts with a peg/hole arrangement. This works extremely well in this scale, and is pretty sturdy.

Frodo has three, since he has the regular Sting and scabbard, plus the ring on a string that fits around his neck. Play around with it a bit, and you can get it to look great!

Gandalf and Legolas also each have three accessories. Gandalf comes with his sword and scabbard, plus his staff which fits nicely in his hand. Legolas has his all important bow, plus another sword and scabbard. Again, all the scabbards attach neatly to the side of the figures.

There are also small plastic stands that come with each set, although I didn't get four in either box. These work fine, but I didn't find the need to use them. These stands can also be snapped onto other building block-type sets (think Legos).

Fun Factor - ****
Looking for some really terrific toys? Look no further. These little buggers are choke full of playtime fun. And if you think adults don't like to play any more, than just try a simple experiment. Take three or four of these two work, and place them somewhere on a table where people will sit and talk to each other. I have such a table in my office, where I chat about all those important intricacies of management. *yawn* After about 5 minutes of this stimulating conversation, you'll notice them pick them up...then start playing around, all the time still talking to you about their humdrum work stuff. But in reality, they're dying to play with these guys! If they have that effect on adults, just imagine how the average six year old kid will feel.

Value - ***
At ten bucks for four figures, you're getting a decent value. These are certainly a better value than X-men mini-mates, particularly because of a) the larger size of much of the line and b) the inclusion of so many accessories, something we don't normally see.

Overall - ***
If you don't like mini-figures, you won't like these, it's really that simple. However, if you're into fun toys, with lots of play value, that you can share with your kids, than definitely give these a look. They combine a simple charm with great articulation and a terrific license. I was able to avoid getting sucked into the swirling vortex of a cash tornado that is the Toybiz 6" line of LOTR action figures, but there's no way I'm going to be able to resist getting all of these.

Where to Buy -
These are Toys R Us exclusives, although the two packs that come out later this summer should be at many other retailers, and will include all eight of these figures.