Category: The LEGO Batman Movie

LEGO Batman Movie – Behind the Bricks Featurette

I remember when the LEGO Movie Behind the Bricks feature came out before that movie… it was the video that pretty much killed the skepticism I had for that whole movie. Whatever I thought about LEGO stuff before I saw that didn’t matter, I knew the humor was going to be solid. Turns out it was far beyond even that impression… the LEGO movie ended up with humor for kids, adults, and even us ice-hearted AFOLs. Apparently what they learned going in to the LEGO Batman Movie is to just do all that, except with the best Batman to hit movie screens in the feature role.

That and I think I saw at least four or five parts that I now need to go find out how to get…

January 26, 2017
Review: 70907 Killer Croc Tail-Gator

You know, I own a truck, and while I’ve certainly used it to haul a number of things, I don’t think I’ve ever felt the need to extend all of the controls for the vehicle out the back of the cab and into the bed. If I needed to do something like that, I’d probably just reconsider my vehicle choices and go for more of a rocket-sled sort of affair. Look, practical doesn’t mean you can’t be stylish.

Killer Croc is a weird villain in the lexicon of Batman… I’m not sure any other character has gone through more physical and artistic revisions. Originally, he was just a guy with a birth defect that made him look like a crocodile (backstory is that he was a wrestler that wrestled crocs), and more than once over the years, he’s looked like that again. For all of the failings of Suicide Squad (and there were so many), one of the things I think they got right was the look of Killer Croc. I mean, he was basically a prop otherwise, but he looked close to his roots. In more recent years, he’s taken more of a look like a lizard over a crocodile… butÂ I think that’s more the fault of the fact that crocodiles and humans just look really different.

One of the main reasons I decided to review 70907 Killer Croc Tail-Gator is that I haven’t picked up the other set that’s currently available with a version of Croc. I should, because it has Katana and Captain Boomerang, but it’s always been pushed to the side as I’ve been filling in my goal of having six hundred of the same Batman minifigure. This set is only $69.99 and a slight 460 pieces, continuing the unfortunate trend of a Bigfig costing us a good 100 or so parts off a set. This is the most expensive of the cars in the movie line, with the least number of parts… and it is sadly missing a Bat Kayak. In short, this truck better have some good 4WD, because it’s got a pretty tough hill to climb.

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January 25, 2017
Amazon Discounts LEGO Batman Movie Dimensions Story Pack

It doesn’t come out for a couple of weeks, but Amazon has discounted the pre-order for the LEGO Batman Movie Dimensions story pack from $49.99 to $29.99. It includes Robin, Batgirl, and likely a whole lot of movie references and jokes.

It also looks like the Fantastic Beasts Story PackÂ and the Ghostbusters Story Pack are bothÂ down 20% to $39.99.

January 24, 2017
Review: 70902 Catwoman Catcycle Chase

There are currently two different Batman sets available that have the words “cycle chase” in the name… one last year and this year’s movie offering, 70902 Catwoman Catcycle Chase. The other set is lacking in Catwoman, but the cycle is suspiciously similar. It’s in the pipeline to get a review once we wrap up the LEGO Batman Movie sets, so eventually I’ll be able to draw a few more comparisons, but it wouldn’t shock me to learn it’s the same designer.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this set when I decided to review it… I’ve owned every one of the Catwoman sets except the 66 Batcave (though I have purchased the Catwoman figure from that set), but I’d be hard pressed to remember any of them. I remember them usually having those absurdly oversized sport bikes, and Batman in some sort of small vehicle that makes me wonder why he’s not in the Batmobile. This set also seems suspiciously familiar… but looking back to the last Catgirl set, one of the original Super Heroes sets, it doesn’t seem to have much in common. Maybe I’ve just built one too many storefront sets.

At $19.99 and a very slight 139 pieces, this is barely larger than 70900 The Joker Balloon Escape, but has three minifigures… and most shockingly, no Batman. In fact, Batgirl and Batman never show up in same set… only Barbra Gordon and Batman do. So I’m calling the first spoiler of the movie… Batgirl is not Barbra Gordon, but just Batman in a purple suit.

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January 23, 2017
70909 Batcave Break-in Down 30%

Update: Amazon has matched the $69.99 price.

I honestly didn’t think we’d see such a nice price break on a The LEGO Batman Movie set this early before the movie is even out but I ain’t complaining! Walmart has the $99.99 MSRP set down to just $69.99, netting a savings of 30% or so, and that includes free shipping to your home. Amazon will eventually match the price; they haven’t yet but you can take a peek at their listing page for any changes. We’ll post an update if catch it.

January 18, 2017
Review: 70912 Arkham Asylum

Arkham Asylum is one of the more recognizable elements of the Batman mythos. Relatively modern, showing up in 1974, but usually designed after some very gothic or victorian “hospitals,” it is where the worst of the victims of the Batman get put to be… I guess tortured? Cause it doesn’t seem like anyone that goes there for any sort of medical care. I mean, honestly, the whole of Gotham seems to be one very long string of civil rights and medical violations, so I’m curious how this place functions.

I called dibs on reviewing 70912 Arkham Asylum as soon as the initial pictures were revealed last year. I owned multiple copies of the first one, which reduced the sanatarium down to a series of customized sheds.Â A new version was released in 2012 in the Super Heroes line, which I was never impressed enough with to actually purchase. It dropped the shed look to go for something more of a facade, but itÂ didn’t feel like it had much style and only a couple of the minifigures struck me as interesting. The $160 price tag didn’t exactly help on that decision, either, even with eight minifigures.

Perhaps the most insane thing about this third version is that the price is lower, dropping down to $149.99 in the US, it has a few more parts (1628… 9 more), and a whopping twelve minifigures. More than that, it’s obvious that this thing is just dripping with a very specific style that the other big set, the Batcave, sorely lacked. While you can see some similarities in the build to the previous Arkham sets, there’s a whole lot more that’s new and unique that you don’t feel like it’s just another rehash… I hope.

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January 18, 2017
Review: 70900 The Joker Balloon Escape

You know, every so often LEGO makes a part you just can’t help but love. Things like the original lightsaber, the batarang, and jester capsÂ are among my favorites. I’m pretty sure that the joker smile face is going to end up on that list, even if it’s a pretty specialized head. There is something wonderful in how it seems to wrap the Joker up in LEGO just perfectly, and it’s hard not to look at the sinister smile and not smile in kind.

I knew I wanted to review 70900 The Joker Balloon Escape before any of the other Batman sets. It was fantastically goofy and simple, the cheapest set to get purple-suit Joker in (this head also appears in Arkham, while the rest of the torso and the coattails show up in the Scuttler), and the set part built into different builds with 70901 Mr Freeze Ice Attack and 70910 Scarecrow Special Delivery to make the energy works. I’m sure it all ties together for some plot point in the movie (which is only a month away as I write this review), but even by itself, it works as a good little set.

This 124 piece set, featuring two minifigures, is the cheapest non-CMF set at $14.99. I miss the era of inexpensive sets that you could just use for simple builds, so it’s always nice to see something small pop up. I’m not sure there’s much else you can build out of it at first glance, but I always need balloons for city and park setups, and I’m sure builders more talented than I am can come up with some nifty stuff here. Except with yet another Batman figure… not sure how many of them you can use at this point.

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January 16, 2017
Review: 70911 The Penguin Arctic Roller

I’m pretty sure that The Batman Movie sets include seventeen different villain vehicles. Okay, the actual number is… four? Five if you count that pizza delivery cart, but themed vehicles, we get four: Joker’s Lowrider, Riddler’s Riddle Racer, Killer Croc’s Tail-Gator, and our review subject,Â 70911 The Penguin Arctic Roller. It was one of the last ones we got an official look at, but certainly seemed to be one of the most striking once the reveal was done.

Of course, after building it, I realized that 70911 was both the set number and the zip code that the set number apparently was sized to represent. Of course, that’s not an actual zip code, unlike the regular Super Heroes sets that are mostly made up of Texas Zip Codes (it makes googling fun when you’re an AFOL that lives in Texas). The bad joke I’m trying to make is that this thing is insanely huge, even by LEGO minifigure scale standards. It lines up against the Batmobile, a set that costs twice as much but was designed to be big and over the top. This one… I’m wondering if it was a design that got out of control because they wanted a certain style for the hubs and wheels.

Anyway, this $29.99, 306 piece set only includes two minifigures. If they were different varieties of the character in any substantial way, that wouldn’t stick out… but we got Penguin in the BatcaveÂ set and Batman in every single set that LEGO has released in the last thirty-four years (or all but two of them… I’ve got a lot of Batman minifigs is what I’m saying). Still, it’s obvious that there’s a very specific style they’re going for on the build, and you have to love the look even if you’re not that into cars. In the US, this looks to be a Target Exclusive set, so you get that or Shop@Home for your purchasing choices.

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January 11, 2017
Review: 70903 The Riddler Riddle Racer

It was pretty clear with the very first LEGO Batman movie trailer exactly what direction they were going to go with the movie… that delightful mix of reverence and absurdity that made the The LEGO Movie work so well. The early sets gave us a taste of that, the Collectible Minifigure Line turned it up to 11… but I think seeing this set was when I knew the CMF was only just starting to scratch the surface.

The craziness of the Eraser and the Calculator are matchedÂ by Calendar Man and Kite Man, and we get one of the classic villains in Riddler and one of the more contemporary ones to see some love (in Beware the Batman) in Magpie. I’ve built all but four of the LEGO Batman movie sets at this point, and the thing that seems to differentiate between good sets and bad sets is the amount of style and flavor that goes into the build. In reviewing 70903 The Riddler Riddle Racer, I think it’s safe to say that it has style in spades.

The base vehicles have had a great amount of style, like the Lowrider and Batmobile, and when you take and mix a bunch of interesting characters, you tuck in a whole lot of value. This is one of two $29.99 sets, along with 70911 The Penguin Arctic Roller, and comes in a seemingly low 254 parts, which is offset by the four figures I mentioned above. I built both sets at the same time, and, spoiler alert… this might just be my favorite of all of the vehicles I’ve built so far.

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January 4, 2017
January 2017 Assortment Now Available

Officially, this may be known as the spring wave. I’m not sure where I saw or heard that so that may or may not be true. In any case, the January 2017 assortment is now available* up at LEGO Shop@Home. Give it another day and Amazon will follow through with their live links.

* – The clock struck midnight a few minutes ago, and as of this writing, not all of the January sets are available. Most are in a state of transition, i.e. have a status of “Backorder”. Things should resolve over the next few hours. All items marked as “Backorder” can still be ordered and will be processed in the order they are placed.

Some notes:

– There is one promo going on right now that may be of interest to you Batman fans. Right now, you can get a free The LEGO Batman Movie mini Batwing polybag set with all orders $35 or more from now through 11:59pm January 15th, 2017 while supplies last. If you hit that threshold you’ll also get free standard shipping.

– And speaking of The LEGO Batman Movie, all sets are live except for 70912 Arkham Asylum. That one is strangely absent from Shop@Home’s website as of this writing. It is a Toys’R’Us retailer exclusive so that may have something to do with it but it’s strange that Shop@Home doesn’t even list it since they’ve always sold retailer exclusives in the past. Looks like it showed up earlier in the morning, along with 70910 Scarecrow Special Delivery

– The Juniors line, which features simpler builds to bridge the gap between DUPLO and classic System, has had a few licensed sets before and continues this year with Frozen and Batman (and Friends but that one’s not licensed).

– New Frozen castle set!

– No new Star Wars sets as of this writing. They may come in a few months. I honestly don’t have a clue on that one.

All the new stuff is in the monstrous list below. Every theme except Star Wars is covered. No need to browse their site. And is it glitchy for anyone else where if you click on a new theme nothing happens? Anyways, just click on through directly to the item you want.

View the list.

December 31, 2016