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Strike Attack Review
Utahceratops Strike Attack
Horned dinosaurs from Utah do not come around often in the Mattel range, so a first ever Utahceratops should have been a highlight of the wave. In places it is: the head and frill are packed with crisp scale detail, and a few glossy touches show more care than usual. But the figure also carries a row of spikes down its back that the real animal never had, the frill hornlets are left unpainted, and the action feature lowers the head rather than swinging it up in a charge. The result is a perfectly decent small ceratopsian that never quite gets exciting, which is fairly typical of the Strike Attack assortment.
⭐ First Mattel Utahceratops🦏 Head-dip action feature📏 ~15 cm / 6 inStrike Attack · Wave 1Product code JPG92DNA scan code included
🦴 The Fossil vs the Figure
With no earlier Mattel Utahceratops to measure against, the fairest test is the real animal. Utahceratops is known from several specimens, so its skull is well understood, and that makes the liberties Mattel has taken easy to spot.
The head gets the basics right, but the back spikes and the oversized frill hornlets push this one into the stylised, slightly mutant look that ran through the Survival line. Primal Ambush otherwise leans towards more natural animals, which makes the spikes stand out even more.
What Is a Strike Attack?
Strike Attack is the small action-feature assortment of Primal Ambush: compact figures with a single spring or button move and no electronics. Wave 1 pairs the Utahceratops with the new Berberosaurus and Eustreptospondylus and a returning Pteranodon, and the checklist on the back of the box shows all four.
The box itself follows the rest of the line, with the Primal Ambush logo, the Indominus rex on the side and a shot of the Utahceratops on the back. In our experience the Strike Attack figures are rarely the stars of a wave, and this one does not change that.
Colour Scheme
Mattel has gone with a scheme it has used a lot lately: one colour for the front half of the animal and another for the back. Here the head, frill, neck and front legs are brown, and the body shifts to a light grey from the middle backwards, with brown speckles scattered over the grey all the way down the tail. Around the eyes, off-white stripes break up the brown face and give it some character.
There are a couple of nice surprises. The nose and brow horns are painted a light tan and finished with a gloss coat, and the eyes are glossy black, details Mattel does not always bother with. The beak gets a gloss coat too, though it stays the same brown as the face. The many hornlets over the frill, however, are left unpainted, so they melt into the frill instead of standing out as the showpiece they should be.
The claws are unpainted throughout, and because the front legs are brown and the rear legs grey, the front and back claws end up in two different colours. Small as it is, it makes the split colour scheme feel less deliberate. Overall it is a standard Mattel paint job: not bad, but nothing special.
Sculpt Breakdown
Head, beak and frill
The head is the best part of the figure. The beak has neat sculpted detail, the nostrils are clearly defined and the skin texture across the face is crisp and lively. The lower jaw and throat use a different scale pattern from the top of the neck, and the scales grow larger as they spread up into the frill, which is covered in sharp, well-defined detail front and back. It is the kind of surface that would reward a repaint.
There is a visible seam where the neck meets the body, a result of the action feature mechanism, but it is not distracting at normal viewing distance.
Body, legs and tail
The flanks and belly carry rich, vibrant skin texture, and the legs show good muscle definition, with a visible elbow, kneecap and calf. A few large osteoderms sit on the front of each thigh. The leg detail is a little softer than on the head, but still solid, and the feet are nicely shaped. The tail has a gentle curve towards the tip and a handful of small scutes near the end. Viewed from the other side the figure is almost a mirror image, with the legs set in a slightly different pose.
The spikes
Joints & Head-Dip Feature
✓ Neck✓ Front legs, forward and back✓ Rear legs, forward and back✓ Tail swivel★ Press the back spikes to lower the head✗ No upward strike
Press down on the spikes along the back and the head drops forward. That is the whole feature. For a horned dinosaur you would expect a charge or an upward head toss, but this movement looks more like the animal stooping to drink or graze than going on the attack. The head can sit a little higher at rest, yet there is no way to make the feature push it upwards.
Beyond the feature, the neck is articulated, all four legs swing forward and back, and the tail swivels. It is the standard small-figure set of joints and does the job, but it will not open up many new poses.
How Big Is It?
From beak to tail the Utahceratops measures about 6 inches (just over 15 cm), and it stands a little under 3.5 inches (9 cm) to the top of the frill. That is right where you would expect a small Mattel ceratopsian to sit. Next to the older, smaller Mattel Triceratops figures it is almost the same size: the Triceratops is a touch longer, while the Utahceratops is slightly taller thanks to its frill.
Estimates for the real animal range from about 4.5 to 7 metres in length, which puts the figure somewhere around 1:30 to 1:45. It will look a little undersized next to the larger dinosaurs in the line, as most Strike Attack figures do.
Final Verdict
Getting a Utahceratops at all is the best thing about this release. Mattel has not made many new horned dinosaurs lately, and this one has a sharply detailed head and frill, glossy horns and eyes, and a pleasant brown and grey scheme.
The problems are just as easy to list. The back spikes do not belong on this animal, the frill hornlets are oversized and unpainted, the claws are bare and mismatched, and the action feature dips the head instead of delivering a proper strike. None of it ruins the figure, but together it keeps the Utahceratops firmly in the middle of the pack.
It is a solid, if unremarkable, small figure. Ceratopsian fans will want it for the species, and a careful repaint of the frill could make it shine. Everyone else can safely treat it as an optional pick from the wave.
✦ The Good
- First ever Mattel Utahceratops
- Crisp, vibrant scale detail on the head and frill
- Glossy painted nose and brow horns
- Glossy black eyes and glossed beak
- Good muscle definition in the legs
✦ The Not So Good
- Back spikes the real animal never had
- Oversized frill hornlets left unpainted
- Action feature lowers the head instead of striking
- Unpainted claws in two different colours
- Very standard half and half paint scheme
Meet the Real Utahceratops
A big-headed horned dinosaur whose discovery helped show that the north and south of ancient western North America had their own, separate dinosaur communities.Why this species is worth knowing
Where and when. Utahceratops gettyi lived in what is now southern Utah around 76 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils come from the Kaiparowits Formation in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which was then a wet floodplain near the western shore of the inland sea that split North America in two.
The name. It was described in 2010 by Scott Sampson and colleagues, in the same study that introduced the many-horned Kosmoceratops. The name means “Utah horned face”, and the species honours Mike Getty, who found the first specimen.
That unusual head. Utahceratops had a very large skull. Its nose horn sat further back than in most relatives, and its short, blunt brow horns pointed outwards and upwards rather than forwards. Long, low bony points lined the middle of the frill.
How big? Estimates vary. Early figures put it at six to seven metres, while more recent ones suggest around 4.5 to 5 metres and about two tonnes.
Its neighbours. It belongs to the chasmosaurines, the long-frilled branch of the horned dinosaurs, and shared its world with Kosmoceratops, Nasutoceratops, the tyrannosaur Teratophoneus and the small raptor-like Talos.
Unlock the Utahceratops
How to Unlock the Primal Ambush Utahceratops?
The DNA scan code is printed on the Utahceratops figure. Scan it with the Jurassic World Play App to add the Primal Ambush Utahceratops to your digital collection.
If the code on your figure has worn away with play, been scratched or hidden by a sticker, scan the copy here straight from your screen.
Utahceratops Gallery
Utahceratops FAQ
Yes. Utahceratops had never been made by Mattel before this Primal Ambush Strike Attack figure, product code JPG92.
Pressing the spikes on its back makes the head dip down and forward. It looks more like a drinking or feeding motion than a charge, and the feature does not raise the head.
It is about 6 inches (just over 15 cm) long and just under 3.5 inches (9 cm) tall to the top of the frill, about the same size as Mattel’s smaller Triceratops figures.
No. The spikes and ridges along the back are a stylised addition by Mattel that also work as the button for the action feature. No Utahceratops fossil suggests anything like them.
In what is now southern Utah, around 76 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils come from the Kaiparowits Formation in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Estimates vary. Early studies suggested six to seven metres, while more recent estimates put it at around 4.5 to 5 metres long and about two tonnes.