LEGO Buddy the Elf – Review
Just like Home Alone and The Nightmare Before Christmas, 2003’s Elf is one of those holiday classics that is always aired around Christmas. Even though we have seen all these movies a million times, we simply can’t get enough of them, and most of them have become our guilty pleasures during the holiday season. Even so, only Home Alone and The Nightmare Before Christmas have been completely LEGO-fied with their own dedicated sets. Now, however, Elf joins the LEGO family with the Buddy the Elf set. Thanks to The LEGO Group, we got to review Buddy’s LEGO debut.
If you love celebrating Christmas and watching all the iconic movies that come with it, then you must have surely already watched 2003’s Elf starring Will Ferrell in the lead as Buddy the Elf. The movie portrays a fully grown man who was raised in Santa’s village as an elf, returning to the human world to meet his real father. We absolutely love that this movie now received its own LEGO set, as it has quite a few iconic moments and characters that would look amazing in different sets. For the time being, however, only Buddy has received his own dedicated LEGO set, and thus we’ll have to make do with that one for the time being. The set contains 713 colorful pieces.
It took us around one hour and a half to build Buddy the Elf at a fairly relaxed pace. The build never got complex, and we actually enjoyed the overall simplicity of the set. This also means there were no real hidden surprises or complicated mechanics for moving parts. We could almost call this the perfect set to build during the holidays with Elf on TV in the background. The design itself is quite nice, and the construction process is quite logically structured, with each bag handling major parts of the build (torso, legs, base, arms, head, and additional decorations). It would have been nice to have a few hidden surprises here, but it’s clearly a case of ‘what you see is what you get‘.
Honestly, for a licensed set from a movie and looking at the overall size of Buddy the Elf, we can say that the price is more than reasonable. Of course, while the build doesn’t have that much ‘meat on its bones’ and is a slim vertical build, it stands rather tall and is an eye-catcher, even if you don’t even know the movie it’s based on. All in all, you’re getting good value for your money. That being said, it’s a bit of a shame that the set didn’t come with a small Minifigure which would have served as the perfect icing on the cake.
Conclusion
As a fun, themed set for the holidays, Buddy the Elf scores major points. The overall appearance is cute; it looks great as a decoration, and even the fairly simple build had us entertained for a while. Combine all of the above with a fairly reasonable asking price, and you get a colorful set without too many bells and whistles that looks great for the holidays (and after they are over, too). We only fear that this set will be popular only with a fairly niche audience that is still enamored by the 2003 movie, and even then, some may even fail to recognize Will Ferrell’s iconic character.
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