Review: 75919 Indominus rex Breakout

This was a hard review to write. Not for any external reasons. Though, I have been busy, I was never busy enough to sit down and gaze with dead eyes at this set all built-up. I just couldn’t bring myself around to care to write it. We’ve had a pretty good streak going on with the Jurassic World sets. I personally have enjoyed all of the middle tier sets and had a mostly positive outlook on this theme in general. But try as I might, I just couldn’t write this review. I’ve started writing it more times than I care to remember. And my apathy towards reviewing 75919 Indominus rex Breakout stems from how disappointing it was.

Look, I’ve/we’ve harped on the issue about movie accuracy before but when it came around to the Jurassic World sets I can’t speak for Nick but I myself threw out any pre-conceived notions that LEGO would “get it right this time” because frankly they just don’t. Outside of Star Wars, most other licensed themes fail at capturing any on-screen accuracy. And it’s not really their fault. Themes typically take a couple of years to develop and produce before any of it hits showroom floors and eventually store shelves. Lots can happen between the time TLG gets a script or storyboards to the time you have the set in your hands and once the balls in motion it’s difficult to go back and redesign or re-engineer a set. Lucky for us Star Wars fans that the original trilogy was already in the can for years before LEGO got the license, so they have no scapegoat for any accuracy failings in that theme. When it comes to new IPs however, I’ve consciously made a decision to be more open minded and a little more forgiving. I’ve said it in my other reviews, but I now try to look for the basic components that the set draws from its source material, and what kind of play value the set offers overall.

For the most part, the designers have been successful in this regard. I liked 75917 Raptor Rampage and it’s sister set 75920 Raptor Escape (which, as of this writing, is now sold out at both LEGO Shop@Home and Walmart.com) and had I been the one reviewing 75918 T. Rex Tracker I probably would have given it a 2 since whatever scene the set was based on never even happened in the movie. I’m forgiving but not THAT forgiving so I’ll just chalk that one up to an early draft of the script. 75919 Indominus rex Breakout is the flagship set and I was really looking forward to it. And perhaps the anticipation was my utter downfall as the set did not meet my expectations and instead just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Indominus itself is pretty nifty looking. Chris Pratt’s character, Owen, made a reference that it white even though on screen he looked more gray to me. Must be that X-wing effect. LEGO ran with the idea of a white dinosaur and made something that looked like it should be miming its way into a sequel. The red eyes are a nice touch to give it a sinister look. It is as poseable as the other dinos but in terms of body it just seems too narrow. I feel like the hips should be a bit wider but I may be wrong. Also, its hands are huge!

The minifig selection is actually pretty sparse. You only get four minifigs with the set: the other teen main cast member Zach, a generic ACU trooper, a generic vet, and Dr Wu. Yeah, Dr. Wu. Let it be known henceforth that Asians in LEGO form will look like they went to a discount spray tan salon. Wu is orange-ish in color and I don’t know if I should be offended or amused. I guess you could easily pick out your Asian minifig parts from piles of yellow, flesh (light peach?), and brown parts so there’s that. I hate his blue hands. They don’t make any sense and to be honest I’m not even sure he even wore any outside of the science lab. It would have been great if his alt face at least had a surgical mask, you know, for use in a sterile environment but I guess that would be expecting too much from not only the LEGO set but from the actual movie too.

My main complaint about the set though is that Indominus doesn’t even fit inside its pen. It’s constructed in a triangular shape with a few relief areas where you could stick its tail or head or even hang the head over a wall to get it to fit inside. The problem is that even with these relief areas you can’t actually turn Indominus around without physically lifting him out of the pen, turning him in the air, and then putting him back down again. This was one of the most disappointing aspect of the entire set. I suppose that is the point though, since it is called Indominus rex Breakout and not Indominus rex Contained, but still.

Each corner and wall of the pen has some sort of play feature and true to its name, there is a wall that Indominus can break out of. There’s a good amount of resistance that feels satisfactorily built when put together. It won’t fall apart by breathing on it so a good whack with Indominus’ tail should send the wall parts flying.

There is a small helipad above what I can only assume is the main office. Aside from Indominus, this is easily my favorite part of the set. The helicopter is supposed to be Jurassic One, just a smaller version of it.

The helipad has a 2×2 round tile that sticks up from the middle of the landing pad that locks the helicopter into place thanks to the square hole built into the landing skis. Yes, they built a round peg to fit into a square hole.

If you have 75919 Pteranodon Capture, you could stick its version of Jurassic One onto the helipad without a problem but it looks big, awkward and out of place. The smaller version works just fine and doesn’t have a boiling pimple of a net cannon bulging out of the side.

The office sits below the helipad where Dr. Wu can design his next genetic hybrid dinosaur. The outside of the lab has a mounted gun and some spotlights just because I guess you can’t just build a railing without it too including some sort of play feature.

The other wall attached to the lab features a crane where you can load up some crates with chicken legs and drop them into the pen. The crane adds a bit of playability to an otherwise boring wall. The feeder has two chicken legs which doesn’t seem like it would do anything to whet Indominus’ appetite. Maybe that’s why it went on a rampage on the island: it was hungry. And I just thought of this but if there ever was a corporate sponsor for a movie, forget Verizon Wireless. Snickers should have gotten a spot and made a few commercials. Owen could run towards Indominus instead of away from it and start yelling and gesticulating wildly with a Snickers bar in one hand.

See? Now that’s a corporate sponsor with a commercial I’d want to watch!

Moving right along we get to the corner attached to the crane wall that has one of those gyroscopic spheres which also came in 75916 Dilophosaurus Ambush. This is probably my second favorite part of the set. The corner has a launching bay where the sphere rests. There’s a plunger behind it and push that plunger out with enough force and the sphere goes racing across your desk/table/floor. Obviously, it requires a smooth surface to roll on for maximum effect. Nick discussed the sphere in his review and I don’t have much more to add. It stabilizes on a single axis instead of three so whilst rolling it it may start to deviate from the central axis and wobble a bit but given the scale and what LEGO was attempting to recreate, I think they did a fine job. They’re fun to roll around and see the minifigs essentially float through their hamster ball. In my particular copy, the chair did not swing as easily as it should and I have no idea how to fix it but it does the job good enough. I do wish the launching bay was attached to the corner with the breakaway wall but given how the pen was built, you could easily swap corners and have Indominus chase after a launched sphere. The opposite corner is pretty plain and doesn’t offer notable play features.

And finally we come to the gate. The iconic Jurassic Park gate. It sounds like a bigger deal than it is and that’s why I only included one picture. There’s just not much else too noteworthy about it. The gate’s inclusion is a bit puzzling since the gate doesn’t lead you into the park but right into Indominus’ holding pen. Is this how they feed him? Lure unsuspecting guests right into the Rex’s jaws? It must be since they obviously don’t have much of a food budget what with only two chicken legs for feeding time. Each door slides along some rails like pocket doors; they don’t swing open like they do in the movie simply because there wouldn’t be enough room with the interior space already at a premium. It’s clear they only included the gates as fan service but I found it funny to think of the kind of surprise guests would get when they’re greeted at the gates of the Park by I. rex.

75919 Indominus rex Breakout carries an MSRP pricetag of $129.99. It’s got a little over 1,100 pieces (1,156 to be exact) but to be honest it doesn’t feel like an eleven hundred piece set. I just don’t feel the value. There’s only 4 minifigs included and had it included another version of Owen, that may have increased its appeal but one hundred and thirty bucks is a lot of cash to put out for a white dinosaur and an undersized play pen. You’re better off trying to get Indominus rex by itself from Bricks and Pieces or even Bricklink. And for that it gets the wait-for-a-deep-discount-to-get-it rating of 2 out of 5 stars. But if you can’t wait you can pick it up at Amazon (just don’t buy it from a third party seller) or LEGO Shop@Home: