This is replica of the police car seen in The Fifth Element is produced by the French company, Attakus. This is the same company that has brought us some incredible Star Wars busts and statues. This car, along with the companion piece Taxi Cab, were limited to a production run of 444 pieces each worldwide.
Please keep in mind when reading this review that I am what I consider to be a pretty hard-core Fifth Element fan. I’m a big stickler for detail and accuracy. With that said, my overall rating of this piece on a scale from 1 to 10 is about 3. It’s just a rats hair above “Total POS”.
The BIG think that really upset me about this piece is that it’s a brand new sculpt. It is NOT cast from an original studio piece, nor was it made using studio reference. My guess is that the sculptor was given some photographic reference material, some measurements, and told to do his best. As the owner of a real police car from the movie, I’m very familiar with the finer details of this piece, and while the sculptor got the overall likeness down, they blew it on the details.
I could go into great detail about how every detail piece on the car is somehow wrong, but I think you get the point. I am incredibly disappointed with this piece.
The paint job is OK at best. Not particularly good weathering, and a lot of the “lines” have been colored outside of, if you take my meaning. Clearly a hand painted piece, this would have benefited greatly from a nice set of decals. Instead, the details are hand painted using scribe lines as guides. Oy.
To make matters worse, the cost was about $225.00, plus shipping. Yikes. For that amount, I would expect a fully accurate piece. The photos that were used for advertising are very low resolution, and do not reveal the fact that it’s a new sculpt. To add insult to injury, sculpted into the undercarriage is the artists name, along with the trademark info. Oy. If I had the option of getting a refund for this piece, I would take it.
I was originally also going to buy the Taxi that was put out by Attakus, but after my crushing disappointment with the police car, I think I will pass.