The LEGO Movie ~ MetalBeard's Sea Cow 70810

Look at the size of that book! 290 pages!

I promised I'd show you MetalBeard's Sea Cow, and here it is...

It's massive! It's a huge set with 2741 pieces and it is around 2ft high and 2ft long. This is without a doubt the most fragile model we've built and, completely unlike the Simpson's House, not suitable for younger children to play with because they just trash it and everything falls off. It is however absolutely gorgeous and the design is amazing.

As well as the ship you have 4 minifigures - the fabulous Benny, Wyldstyle, Emmet and Vitruvius, as well as Queasy Kitty and MetalBeard himself.

This MetalBeard is a smaller version than the movie version and the MetalBeard 70807, I imagine because to get it to scale correctly the ship would have to be ridiculously big and expensive.

You can't have good guys without the baddies, so included in the set are 2 of the flying Micro Managers.One with the flick missiles and claws, and the other a net-shooter. 

The set also contains my 5 1/2 year old's favourite thing, and one of the best props of the movie - the Double-Decker Couch!

It's brilliance is partly because it's so badly made. 

It's flimsy and ridiculous and frankly just perfect. 

The ship itself is built on 3 large shaped plates and includes a lot of Technic LEGO. 

This isn't a build for someone new to LEGO. The kit has a suggested age range of 14+. This is spot on, it would be an incredibly hard and frustrating build for any 10 year old however much LEGO practice they'd had.,It uses tricky techniques and as we've found to our cost, there are plenty of easily dropped sections that if your 4 year old removes them, you have to strip it and rebuild from the bottom up.

It does however have an astounding number of cannons, including 6 below deck that actually fire. In the movie this is what the boy makes from what he can find, and it's got everything a child would put into a build. Tons of guns and every engine you could possibly think of!

The completed ship really is a brilliant thing. 

The Sea Cow is a great touch, but it can't balance out the amazing rear end of this build. 

MetalBeard's throne is at the top of a ridiculously high tower which threatens to overbalance the build as you are working. The ship itself all rocks as if it were on water really easily. It makes it a bit more challenging to say the least.

Everything is over-the-top and incredibly ostentatious. It's all about excess - gold and chains and fancy fretwork everywhere. 

Inside the ship is just as gorgeous. Although this is more of a display piece and not a model for active play it certainly isn't non-working. The anchors lower, the cannons fire and the rear doors open to reveal the boiler room complete with swinging chandelier and an amazing Captain's Room with treasure, the ship in a bottle, maps and blueprints.

 

Obviously part of what makes this so huge a model is the sails, made using Technic plates .

All in all this is a thing of beauty and a really satisfying build for an adult LEGO fan. The design is amazing and really satisfies the child in you as well as the adult. It's an expensive kit at £160, but has a lot of pieces for a set of that price and is definitely more interesting to look at for 2 hours than your average night's TV.

If your budget doesn't stretch that far and it isn't your birthday then we'll be reviewing a couple of the £10 LEGO Movie sets soon.

We bought this using the LEGO voucher we won in the Carcraft competition, and some of our children's inheritance. The pictures vary because it was built in the evenings and then I carried it downstairs to photograph it. My 4 year old adores it and so you may see a couple of bits not quite in the right place because he made best use of the 3 minutes it took me to go back upstairs for the figures and dismantled as much as he could!