Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

THE BOX

The box is a cardboard cuboid structure constructed from a fairly standard net, with edges pre-scored, folded, perforated, and glued. You, as the purchaser, do not need to construct the box at all. I know at least one person who would be upset at that, but to most of us, it makes sense.

The actual artwork (that comes pre-printed on the cardboard cuboid structure) is simultaneously magical and misleading, in a fairly amusing sort of fashion. It ticks all the right boxes: it is eyecatching; it is big; it is bold; it has just the right amount of bright primary colours to make your eyes bleed; it has gorgeous CGI renders of the terrible twosome; it has the necessary logos and stuff.

Let's take a minute or seven to look at the layout. The Bionicle logo, in its crisp, vectorised white edition, adorns the upper left corner, with 'Maxilos & Spinax' placed directly underneath, with a subtle white to blue gradient and blue motion blur that more or less completely fails to catch your attention. The Bionicle.com blatent advertising is shoved into the top right corner, without even a motion blur or pretty stroke in sight. How disappointing. As we let our eyes slide down the hard paperlike surface, we find the irritating age rating and product number. They are very boring, so we shall continue our journey to the right, where we find the Lego logo, dropped unceremoniously into the bottom corner looking for all the world like an afterthought. These little thingys do, however, leave a ridiculously mind-bogglingly huge space for the main artwork, which is probably a very good idea. Whoever designed the artwork seems to have had the bright idea of using a water-themed design, with a rather pleasing blue background, filled with a sort of rock thing and a sort of gigantic white blur that is, most unfortunately, almost totally obscured by the image of Maxilos. If I had a chance to interview the graphic designer, I would definately place 'what is that intriguing white void behind the characters' around number three on my top ten list of questions.

The actual render of Maxilos and Spinax is very disappointing, for two main reasons. Firstly, it leads you to believe that Spinax is in possession of some absolutely gorgeous chrome pieces, and the shock of finding that they're merely the normal silver is enough to send anyone into rehabilitation suffering from total disappointment overload syndrome, which I just made up. Secondly, Maxilos' cool swordy thing is emanting some sort of pretty yellowy glow that hides most of his body. On a set such as, say, Karzahni (vomit) this would actually be such a great idea that the graphic designer should get a medal, but here, it is very sad, as Maxilo's torso is his major selling point. Or at least, one of them. The pose that M&S are in is rather pleasant, and all the lovely bubbles floating around, combined with that nice Mahri circular circle thing make a good piece of artwork that could be printed off and hung in the Tate Modern gallery in London, as it is far better than most of the artworks there (apart from the cool gel postcards they have, but that's a different review entirely).

The sides of the box are decorated with a nice rusty effect, with all the standard warnings in twenty-seven billion different languages. Interestingly, the Lego logo pops up again a grand total of four more times, as if you hadn't worked out that it was a Lego product yet. Other things of note include the Mahri Nui logo, a rather nice little circular piece with a sort of city and a sort of cord sort of bursting out of it in a sort of enjoyable manner. For some utterly bizarre reason, there is also a scale picture of one of the Cordak whatsits, which, rather impressively, is actually the right size.

Moving on to the back of the cuboid packaging, we find yet more blue. Tons and tons of blue. Enough blue to make you think that it might all be set underwater, or something silly like that. You can also expect to find another image of M&S. This image is annoying in that it clearly shows Maxilos' chain to be comprised of no less than seventeen links. You do not get seventeen links in the set. In fact, you are lucky to get seven. Another thing of interest is that, if you look carefully, you can see that whoever made the CGI of Maxilos messed up where he's holding the chain, and that the chain is bursting out of the blue friction pin in a very ungainly and physically impossible way. We also find images of Voya Nui, Mahri Nui, and another one of Mahri Nui with lots of nice bubbles and small craft in the bottom left side. Anyone with half a brain can work out that his craft is, in fact, a disguise adopted by a lone Tahnok Va, to try and sneak into the limelight when everyone was looking the other way.* But now you know this, you can look at it smugly and say, 'aha, I know your secret Tahnok Va'.

You can also expect to find images of the other Titans and functions, unless your box happened to get caught in a rainstorm and all the ink washed off.

Finally, we reach the parts inside the box.

PARTS INSIDE THE BOX

If your box is empty, you should consider the possibilties that either you have already opened it and taken the parts out, or a Lego packing robot went on strike and/or fell into a large vat of custard. In the unlikely event that your pieces are missing, and replaced with a large amount of pink flowers, consider yourself lucky in that one of the Lego packing robots obviously has a crush on you, and you can expect lots of other pink pretty things in the future.

Failing emptiness and pretty pink flowers, you will find a pleasant instruction booklet with a nice glossy cover and lots of little plastic things of various shapes and colours that are called 'Lego elements'. Or pieces to us common folk. Pieces of note include the GUNMETAL PARTS such as the TWO GUNMETAL IGNIKA and the GUNMETAL METRU FEET. Other parts of less interest include ten bright red socket joints, two bright red long double socket joints, and Maxilos' mask. Ignoring what canonical evidence would say, this is a mask. It conects to a Metru head, and has eyeholes, therefore it is a mask. It also has a rather disturbing growth on the left side, that probably means that Maxilos should go to a doctor for a checkup, as it looks quite nasty. Ignoring the humourous growth, the mask looks acceptable. Not magical, like a Miru. Not stylish like an Avohkii. Not oddly Lemon-shaped like a Kiril (though it is interesting, but not that interesting, to note that his mask does in fact bear more than a passing resemblance to a Kiril). No, Maxilos' mask is just about acceptable, but boring enough for you to forget all about it and tread on it after leaving it abandoned on your bedroom floor for two months and having to go to hospital because it has cut your big toe on it. Other nice parts include Spinax's faux-flip mask headpiece and the nice silver spines, otherwise known as Teeths.*

THE PUTTING OF IT ALL TOGETHER

We'll deal with Spinax first, because he/she/it is fairly insignificant and forgetable. He/she/it is rather like Ehlek, in that you snap two Vahki hips to a large liftarm and shove on some limbs, a head, and Teeths. The overall appearance is nice, especially the way his/her/its jaws clamp shut and cover his/her/its eyes, thus rendering him/her/it completely blind. The Teeths are cool, giving him/her/it a nice skeletal appearance.

However, the colour scheme leaves a lot to be desired. A lot. It is comprised of black, dark grey, light grey, and silver. In my humble opinion (bearing in mind that I have qualifications in Art, Graphic Design, and Digital Multimedia Imaging (just to boast a bit) and that I ought to know what I'm talking about when it comes to colour), Spinax would be lot better off ditching the black and dark grey, and just going for silver and light grey. This would give him/her/it a nicer, sleeker appearance. Oh, and it would also mean lots of pieces in new colours, which makes me happy.

Now, we dance along to Maxilos (dance, or else). Frankly, he looks simultaneously awesome and vomit-inducing. At a first glance, he looks cool. Second, you think 'hmm'. By the third time you're wondering what's wrong, and if you survive to the fourth you start to question the meaning of life and lemons. We'll start at the bottom and work up.

His feets are meh. They are nothing special, like Brutaka's, yet they are also nothing disgusting, like Umbra's. His lower legs are just grey Vahki legs. Not too imaginative, but then the set designers generally aren't all that imaginative anyway. Moving on, his upper legs are annoying. They follow the same boring design of a long tube with sockets either end, and a few things bursting off in all directions for good measure. Oh dear. Especially the GUNMETAL METRU FEET, which are suspended in midair, leaving vast gaps of gappiness that will make even the most hardened fan weep hot tears of sorrow and write poems of such heart-breaking sadness that they have to sit in a darkened room and tell the world how evil it is. Luckily, things start to look up from here.

The lower body, or hips, is annoying. It's pretty much just some Vahki hips with some socket joints thrown on. It's amusing that the Toa Mata's hips were actually more solid than Maxxie, and he's about five million times their size. Something like Roodaka would be good, with a Slizer foot on the front, or maybe an upside down Mata Head. Whatever, poor Maxxie should have some armour there at least.

Moving swiftly on, we arrive at the upper body. It is rather interesting, as it isn't composed of the 'Y' torso or a prebuilt torso (shock horror). It has articulation. Yes, that's right. Not only does Maxxie have waist articulation, but he also has shoulder articulation too. How exciting! However, the parts choice baffles me. The GUNMETAL MODIFIED HORDIKA FOOT fits rather well. No real problems there. The GUNMETAL LEHVAK KAL parts, on the other hand, are incredibly annoying, as they leave him with two massive gaps in what I am hesitant in calling his chest.

To skippity hop along a little tangent here, I shall discuss the gaps in Maxxie. DV, if you have read this far, you may have a cookie, and you may also find this bit vaguely entertaining. Bionicle characters are, invariably, mechanical in nature (oh, fine, biomechanical). Thus, some gaps are acceptable. I call these 'style gaps'. Such gaps originated on our lovable heroes, the Toa Mata. Look at their torsos. Look at Maxxie. Look back at the Mata. And back at Maxxie. Get in now? Style gaps are fine. They are deliberate (I assume) and give the sets style. The other kind of gaps are not fine. They are called 'lazy gaps'. These are things like the voids in Maxxie's legs, the dark holes in Gadunka's entire substance, the odd recess in Karzahni's chest armour. Lazy gaps make Seran cry. Do not forget that. Lazy gaps are found in the Lehvak Kal claws. Lego could have used pretty much any of the twelve varieties of Bohrok shields, and they chose the most gappy ones. Why is this? I think I have the answer. Look at Karzahni. Once you have finished vomitting, look at his back. I believe you will find two Lehvak Kal handshields. Where have we seen them before? Oh yes, Maxxie. More evidence? Look at Hyraxon. Hello, Hydraxon. Peer longingly at his GUNMETAL fingers. Why are they GUNMETAL, when he doesn't have any other parts in that magical colour? Look at the playsets for this year. At least one of them has the same GUNMETAL parts. Coincidence? Hmm? I think not. It seems that Lego has a nifty trick of sneakily using the same 'new' parts in their sets, presumably to cut costs. It makes sense - if you have two similar new parts featured on different sets, why not make them the same?

Zooming back to Maxxie here, we find Seran sobbing over his magically articulatedness. Why is that? You'll find out later. Bet you can't wait. We take a quick look at his back; nothing special there though, just a Hordika chest armour piece. A nice piece, but not terribly special. We then look at his arms. Ah, his arms. They have GUNMETAL IGNIKA on them. Yes. Yes they do. Absolutely fabulous. Aside from that, they are dull. They are Vahki legs again, and Brutaka-esque Piraka claws as hands. Yes, they work. Yes, they look ok. No, they are not special. Unlike, say, Fenrakk's cute little bulbous tail. That is special. Maxxie's arms are not.

His weapon, the notorious Blackfire sword, is rather pleasant. It is nice to look at. It uses two of Hewkii's stylish blades, and one of Matoro's whatever-they-ares, and one of the breathing tubes. A nice combination, especially with the trans red axle joiners.

His head is attached to a short double socket, which gives it a wide range of articulation. This gives him an interestingly unnatural effect, as beffiting his robotic nature. The tube sticking out of the other growth on his head looks ok.

THE PLAYING WITH AND STUFF

Of course, I don't play with my Bionicle sets now. The most I do is pose them on a shelf for a while, before ripping them apart for MOCing. Spinax is ok, I guess. Decent range of articulation, though as I said before, the jaws are annoying. So, Spinax is ok. Maxxie is irritating. He's fun to pose, though the masses of articulation can make posing difficult, ironically.

OVERALL

Lots of nice parts, especially the GUNMETAL pieces. I daresay they'd be fun to play with, though the articulation is a bit lacking. Lots of fun posing, it you are patient enough to keep unhooking the tubes and arms from each other.

Maxxie and Spiney is a decent set, though the box is slightly more interesting to look at than the sets themselves.

-Seran

*Not necessarily true, but it would be fun if it was.