Home Alone Review (21330)

When you think of epic holiday movies, what comes to mind? For us, it’s Die Hard, Love Actually and Home Alone! So far only one of these movies is a LEGO set, and it doesn’t involve any shouts of Yippee Ki Yay. It’s the fantastic Home Alone house.

This set blends two of my favourite themes – LEGO Ideas and LEGO Modulars. It’s not technically a Modular set but quite similar in the approach. Like many Ideas sets, the very hefty manual (475 pages) starts with an overview of the Movie, some set features, an overview of the Fan designer (Alex Storozhuk) and the LEGO designers (Antica Bracanov, Enrique Belmonte Beixer and Kirsten Bay Nielsen). We then move onto the build.

The Wet Bandits

The set starts with a smokey puff from the bandits van. It’s a quick enjoyable little build including a removable roof, some stolen silverware and the two bandits – Harry and Marv.

Both minifigs are fantastic. Marv has two prints on his head both of which are immediately recognisable by the impression and great 1970’s muttonchops. Without a doubt a key highlight of the set is the face print with a hot iron imprint. It’s hilarious. Harry is also instantly recognisable with his gold tooth print. The use of the child legs for Harry is a nice touch illustrating the clear difference in the bandits height seen throughout the movie.

The McAllister House

The team have translated many of the great action scenes of the movie into the set really well. The first part of the build has a long technic mechanism embedded beneath the floor to move the Michael Jordan cutout and also the human bust on the turntable to trick the Bandits. Once the set is fully built, you can rotate a small cylinder on the outside of the house to make them move. The use of upper windows to the basement provide an effective and novel way to provide the necessary height without simply bricking it up.

As we continue the build, a great deal of Christmas cheer is present with liberal use of green, white and red. It keeps the build enjoyable and mirrors the interior decorations of the house. As we start to build Kevin, we’re introduced to the next swooshable function – Kevin’s toboggan that you can slide down the stairs. Pressing a small lever on the rear of the build pushes Kevin down the stairs. It’s a great concept, but not entirely effective in the flesh. Perhaps if the interior wall and stairs were offset 1 stud to the right, Kevin would make it through the front door, but as it is he crashes into the ground floor wall. Speaking of the front door, the door handle is a glowing hot red diamond element referencing yet another great moment in the movie.

The living room has a tonne of colour including an ornate fireplace, a LEGO home alone present under the tree (meta!) and a golden frog. Yes, you read right – a golden frog. Scouring the internet didn’t provide a definitive answer, but it looks to me like a small golden statue that was in the movie on the mantle. That’s my final answer Eddie – lock it in.

As we finish the lower floor, we introduce the dining table, a grandfather clock and finish the internal walls. There’s quite a few calls to the movie like the Eiffel tower picture on the wall which are enjoyable little Easter eggs. The highlight for me was the mechanism used to enable the front walls to rotate open. Traditionally, modular sets allow you to remove certain components such as Level 1, Level 2 etc. However, this approach seamlessly clips into the furniture and also allows you to open up the level for viewing with the other floors still in place. I really like how simple yet effective it is.

Moving to level 2, brings yet more great moments from the movie starting with the Tarantula on the wall of the stairs. More family photos are also included, with Buzz’s rage clear in the photo. The iconic paint can to the face scene is also present and ready to deploy. I’m wincing in anticipation just writing about it.

The parent’s four poster bed is quite nice and the upside down flower parts usage for the lamp is great.

Building Buzz’s room brings the next interactive component with the falling shelves. All of Buzz’s most prized possessions can be knocked down by pressing a small lever in the rear of the house allowing the tarantula to escape and start its journey to Marv’s face! The upstairs front two walls have the same mechanism to allow them to be swung open for increased viewing capacity.

We finish the main house with Kevin’s cramped attic bedroom where he was sent to adjust his attitude. The pullout sofa bed and gumball machine are both great little builds. The battle plan is also present to prepare for the hectic night ahead! This part of the build also has a hinged roof so you can open the roof in addition to completely removing it. I love the level of access in the build.

The final component of the main build is the rear basement section which attaches to the rear of the house. It includes the oily floor, the icy steps and a light up brick to make the furnace glow. Pressing the top of the furnace opens the mouth and stokes the embers to heat up Kevin’s nightmares!

The upper room of this section includes yet more callouts to the movie. Keep the change you filthy animal is playing on TV and the crème brûlée head toasting device is warmed up and ready to go. Even more playability is included on this level with a rotating chimney sending an iron plummeting onto poor Marv’s face.

The final part of the build is the Treehouse and bringing Kate McAllister back into the picture. Kate has two prints on her head with one of them echoing the scream of realisation that she’s left “KEVIN!!!!” behind.

The set could have launched without the treehouse, but I’m glad it was included. It really allows the full movie to be played out including the zipline and scissors for the final escape. There’s even the red plane from Home Alone 2 stuck in the leaves of the treehouse.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, this is a fantastic set which I highly recommend. It’s a fun build and the designers have done a amazing job covering almost all of the memorable moments in the movie. Granted they had a fantastic platform to work with as the movie almost entirely revolves around the house. Nevertheless it’s really enjoyable to build, gives a lot of laughs, has a tonne of swooshability and looks fantastic as a display piece.

Overall: 92%