Tag Archives: Reviews

Not sure which LEGO sets to pick up for yourself? Need ideas for that LEGO fan who already has more LEGO than he or she can possibly build with in a lifetime? Nervous about the quality of the custom accessories that tempted you at your last LEGO convention? Read our reviews of LEGO sets, books, accessories, and more right here on The Brothers Brick.

LEGO 75978 Harry Potter Diagon Alley [Review]

Today, there is no LEGO theme as special as Star Wars. Not only is it one of the fundamental LEGO universes, but it is also presented in almost every category of LEGO products: regular sets, junior sets, action figures, keychains, stationery, video games, and many more including, of course, more expensive exclusive sets. Apart from the Star Wars and Creator Expert / 18+ advanced building sets, there are not that many themes that have earned an exclusive product release. Thankfully, the LEGO Harry Potter joined the club in 2018 with the release of 71043 Hogwarts Castle. And just two years later comes another massive exclusive set, 75978 Diagon Alley. Despite being 500 pieces smaller than the gigantic Hogwarts castle, with its 5,544 pieces, it’s big enough to be the fourth in the list of the biggest LEGO sets released so far. Remarkably, both sets have the same price tag of US $399.99 | CAN $499.99 | UK £369.99, so let’s build the new one and find out whether it has more value for the same money.

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LEGO Collectible Minifigures 71028 Harry Potter Series 2 Feel Guide [Review]

With the newest wave of Collectible Minifigures, 71028 Harry Potter Series 2, now available on store shelves, that means it’s time to bring you our Feel Guide, the best way to know what you’re buying before you fork over your hard-earned cash. Veteran fans know that LEGO’s blind bags have plenty of tells, and if you’ve got a little bit of patience you can determine each and every figure without opening a single pack. This means you can buy a full set of 16 unique figures without getting unwanted duplicates, and we’re here to help with a downloadable cheat sheet to get you started.

LEGO Collectible Minifigures 71028 Harry Potter Series 2 are available now for US $4.99 | CAN $4.99 | UK £3.49. They may also be available from third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO 40423 Halloween Hayride [Review]

Autumn doesn’t really start until later in the month, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get hyped up now for fall festivities. (After months of quarantine, I’m pretty sure time is meaningless, anyway. ) So who’s up for a haunted hayride? Oh. Right. COVID. Staying indoors is still the better part of valor, so maybe not. But wait! LEGO has come to the rescue! 40423 Halloween Hayride is available in North America from the LEGO Shop Online for US $12.99 | CAN $16.99.  But is this set a trick or a treat? Read on and see!

Click to read the full hands-on review

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Facing the music: LEGO Ideas 21323 Grand Piano [Review]

They say there is nothing you can’t build with LEGO bricks. Most of the time, that is very true provided you have enough plastic bricks. But let’s get real; there are certain categories of real-world things that do not translate into LEGO-world particularly well, carrying form but not function. One example would be musical instruments. It looks like building a playable LEGO musical instrument is nearly impossible. It also looks like you have to have the skills of a magician to land a job as a LEGO Ideas designer. The work the LEGO design team did to turn fan Donny Chen’s idea into the official 3,662-piece 21323 Grand Piano set seems truly amazing. However, you never judge a set until you have built it, so let’s assemble, tune and play this majestic instrument, which can be purchased today for US $349.99 | CA $449.99 | UK £319.99.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO Harry Potter 40412 Hagrid & Buckbeak BrickHeadz characters [Review]

Harry Potter fans have a lot of LEGO sets to choose from this year, but if they want to add Hagrid and Buckbeak to their BrickHeadz collection, they’ll have to act fast. This buddy pack of our favorite care of magical creatures professor, and his Hippogryph Buckbeak are available from September 1 – September 15 as a gift with purchase of any Herry Potter LEGO set priced at $99 or more (€100 / £100 Harry Potter purchases only), while supplies last.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO reveals new Universal Monsters license with BrickHeadz 40422 Frankenstein [Review]

Is it too early to be thinking about Halloween? Not at all! And LEGO is here to help us get into the (ahem) spirit of things with a new BrickHeadz set. But is this a seasonal offering or a hint of something more substantial to come? Say hello to 40422 BrickHeadz: Frankenstein, number 111 in the BrickHeadz collection. This 108-piece set has yet to get an official price or release date, but will likely match the $9.99 US pricing from the rest of the line. What secrets does this set have in store? Read on and see!

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO City 60271 Main Square – exclusive set inspired by LEGO City Adventures [Review]

Do you watch LEGO City Adventures? Apparently it’s quite popular. And LEGO announced recently that they’re celebrating that success with an exclusive set: 60271 Main Square. This 1518 piece offering is based on the locations and characters from the show, and will be available September 1st.  Featuring over a dozen minifigures, there are also builds ranging from limousines to tram cars to City Hall itself. That’s a whole lot of stuff packed into a US $199.99 | CAN $229.99 | UK £169.99 package. But is this City adventure worth the price of admission? Read on and judge for yourself!

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO Collectible Minifigures 71028 Harry Potter Series 2 [Review]

The Harry Potter franchise has become one of LEGO’s most popular and enduring themes, having given fans numerous iterations of most of their favorite characters since the line’s first wave back in 2001. In 2018 LEGO pointed their wildly successful Minifigures line at the Wizarding World, introducing a biggest-ever set of 22 characters from Harry Potter as well as from Fantastic Beasts in anticipation of the second film’s release with 71022 Harry Potter & Fantastic Beasts Minifigures. Now LEGO is returning with another wave, though this one is focused entirely on the classic Harry Potter series. Featuring the traditional 16 unique figures in blind bags, LEGO Collectible Minifigures 71028 Harry Potter Series 2 are available starting Sept. 1 for US $4.99 | CAN $4.99 | UK £3.49. Despite nearly 20 years of LEGO Harry Potter sets, Series 2 manages to include five characters who have never before appeared in LEGO form, along with plenty of new character designs and a nice selection of new elements.

Click to read our full, hands-on review

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Create your own mosaic masterpiece with Lego Art Remix [Review & Interview]

Recently TBB’s Chris Doyle shared with us his journey of creating a custom LEGO Art mosaic. One of the tools Chris used, LEGO Art Remix, was an essential step towards getting to the finished product. We took some time to talk to Creator Deb Banerji about the project. With his background in Computer Science, Deb coded the foundation of the LEGO Art Remix tool in about 5 hours, though he’s spent a bit more time refining it since then. I’ve had some hands-on time with it from the first release and to its current final form, and it’s only gotten better. The latest results output close to a finished mosaic design that you can immediately start building within minutes if you had the parts on hand.

Click to read the review and interview with Deb

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO Art 31199 Marvel Studios Iron Man mosaic + 7,000-piece Ultimate Build [Review]

A few months ago we reported that LEGO was discontinuing its Creator Expert branding in favor of a broader array of adult-targeted LEGO sets. There’s no longer a handy moniker to round up these sets, but most of them bear the new 18+ age recommendation, which simply denotes their focus on adults rather than signifying anything about the difficulty of the set, as the age bracket has traditionally done. However, most of the sets that have come out of the new initiative fall neatly within the familiar styles from previous years, such as the Star Wars UCS A-wing, Crocodile Locomotive, or the Haunted House. One new assortment stands out, though, with the LEGO Art line featuring a series of four sets that let you assemble your own wall decor mosaic-style. Today we’re taking a look at 31199 Marvel Studios Iron Man, which is available now for US $119.99 | CAN $149.99 | UK £114.99. It has 3,167 pieces, and includes instructions to assemble one of three different portraits of various Iron Man suits. Alternatively, if you purchase three copies of the sets, you can build a huge Iron Man image that’s three times the size. So let’s take a look at the new mosaic set and see if it lives up to expectations.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO 10277 Crocodile Locomotive [Review]

The latest LEGO set to be released under the Adult Portfolio theme (previously known as the Creator Expert line) is the Crocodile Locomotive. LEGO has been making trains and locomotives all the way back from 1965 and since then it has given life to die-hard fans that gather around communities and clubs that that focus on this single theme. Trains and locomotives, without a doubt, is an evergreen theme that has evolved in many forms and I dare say that its featured every single year since the beginning of its first introduction regardless the sub-theme it may appear in, from the tiniest polybag to the generic City sets, or even tie-ins from the Harry Potter franchise. After a 7-year hiatus of a serious train release, we take a look and share our thoughts on the latest Crocodile Locomotive theme consisting of 1271 pieces and priced at US $99.99 | CAN $149.99 | UK £89.99

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Is the LEGO 71374 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) more than just a 1-UP of 1980’s Super Mario nostalgia? [Review & Video]

It’s important to understand as you read this review of the new LEGO 71374 Nintendo Entertainment System that I never owned an NES myself as a kid back in the 80’s. But I wanted one. After all, it felt like nearly every one of my friends in the neighborhood in Japan where I lived had a Famicom, or later the true NES launched in 1985. As I went over to my friends’ houses and played Super Mario and the very first Legend of Zelda, I so very desperately wanted one! But I never did, partly because I was told that I had enough toys in the form of all the LEGO underfoot in my bedroom. Now, I can buy my own (US $229.99 | CAN $299.99 | UK £209.99) and build it for myself from LEGO, which seems even better. Does this marriage of my favorite little plastic bricks with the big plastic brick of my dreams live up to 35 years of pent-up expectations? Let’s find out…

Read our hands-on review of LEGO 71374 Nintendo Entertainment System

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.