Review: 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle from LEGO® Disney™

It’s been 34 years (pause to realize my age…) since Beauty and the Beast was released by Disney™, blowing audiences away with the vibrant story and visuals. The movie and its characters have become icons, and many LEGO® sets have been inspired by it. So far, all of these sets are either aimed at children in the LEGO® Disney Princess theme, LEGO® Brickheadz, or references in other sets like 43226 Disney Duos. 

Now, for the first time, an 18+ set fully dedicated to the movie is being released: 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle. Will it be as impressive as the original? Be our guest, and join us in exploring the mysterious castle and all its secrets.

Review: 10354 The Shire from LEGO® Icons The Lord of the Rings

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, but a hobbit hole made of LEGO® bricks! Today we journey back to Middle-earth to recreate Bilbo Baggins' famous abode, Bag End, in set 10354 The Shire. 

There's much to celebrate in this set; not only is it Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday but we finally get a LEGO Tolkien-based set that isn't prohibitively expensive. Plus, the set contains a treasure trove of new elements including 2 new moulds, 8 exclusive minifigures, and 13 recolours. Let's take a look!

 

Review: 43272 Heihei from LEGO® Disney™

One of the most colourful sets released earlier this month is LEGO® Disney 43272 Heihei, a brick-built version of the idiotic rooster from the Moana movies. 

There's a new mould, a few recolours and a pile of rarer colours in this set, so well worth a closer look.

Review: 31215 Vincent van Gogh – Sunflowers from LEGO® Art

LEGO® Art has been a polarising theme among the generally praised 18+ sets. So far, only a small minority of the theme's 20 sets have been versions of well-known works of art – and of those, most have been pop art pieces or logos easily transferred into the plastic material and the well-defined colour charts of LEGO bricks. The most interesting departure so far has been 31213 Mona Lisa, reviewed by Jonas Kramm last September and, outside the LEGO Art theme, LEGO® Ideas 21333 Vincent van Gogh - The Starry Night which I had pleasure to review in 2022. It's still my favourite set.

Whereas the bold blues of van Gogh's palette transformed delightfully into bricks, da Vinci's Renaissance idiom of thin, light layers resulted in a larger divergence from the original. The project was ambitious but the reception was mixed. 

I wonder if the good performance of the Starry Night made the designers look back to van Gogh and produce 31215 Vincent van Gogh – Sunflowers: he sure is an admired artist, but getting two among the very small number of painting-in-LEGO sets is not a small feat. With a quick look, the set seems to be very close to the original painting – but we'll have more than a quick one.

Review: sets 42203, 42204 & 42205 from LEGO® Technic

The March 2025 wave of LEGO® Technic sets consists of 5 vehicles. I’ve already looked at the 2 large F1 cars, and now I turn to the 3 smaller sets, where we find 2 fast cars and a dump truck.

Review: 21354 Twilight The Cullen House from LEGO® Ideas

Stephenie Meyer started her writing career by breaking the mould, not realizing publishers expect shorter teenage novels than the author's debut manuscript. That didn't stop the voracious hordes of 2000s teen readers; once they had a taste of blood they wanted more of Twilight's supernatural love triangle. Five books, five movies, and twenty years later, the fandom lives on like some kind of immortal vampire, prompting fans around the world to support the LEGO® Ideas 21354 Twilight The Cullen House into production.

Review: sets 42652, 42662 & 42663 from LEGO® Friends

We have reached my final blog post covering the LEGO® Friends sets from the January 2025 wave. The last three sets have us building a treehouse, stylin' a new coif, and setting out on a camping trip. And of course, all these adventures will provide us with new elements.

Set review: 42206 Oracle Red Bull Racing RB20 and 42207 Ferrari SF-24 from LEGO® Technic

Throughout 2025, The LEGO Group is releasing sets based on the Formula 1 races, which kick off in Australia this weekend. LEGO® Technic joins in with (among others) two large scale F1 cars: 42206 Oracle Red Bull Racing RB20 F1 Car and 42207 Ferrari SF-24 F1 Car. In part 1 of this review I showed you all the new elements found in sets 42206 & 42207, and now I’ll start building the two speedy vehicles – at the same time, for comparison!

Review: 40762 Mixed Flowerpot GwP from LEGO® Botanicals

It's proving to be quite the year for LEGO® Botanicals! They've become their own line with their own logo, released some stunning sets with new moulds, taken over LEGO® House and had their first ever Gift with Purchase (GwP) – and now, here is their second already.

40762 Mixed Flowerpot, now available worldwide, is a gorgeous model featuring a range of stunning LEGO flowers. If you are a fan of the LEGO Botanicals theme, you simply cannot miss out from adding this to your collection. If you have never built one, this is the perfect taster set to find out what all the fuss is about! 

Review: 43262 Maleficent's and Cruella De Vil's Dresses from LEGO® Disney

43262 Maleficent's and Cruella De Vil's Dresses from LEGO® Disney is the second of the two dress sets that will be released 1 March 2025.

We have already taken a look at 43266 Cinderella's Dress and now it's time for the slightly larger and more expensive set with two dresses.  While both of these sets may not be of interest to everyone from a theme point of view, they do contain some nice new elements.

Review: sets 42640, 42641, 42650 & 42651 from LEGO® Friends

I am building the sets in the January 2025 wave of LEGO® Friends sets, and for this blog post I’ve selected the ones that primarily focus on animals. It’s a cuteness overload!

The LEGO Friends theme is responsible for the introduction of many new animals, whose more curvy, realistic features stand out from the more blocky classic versions found in themes like LEGO® City. This latest wave brings us many new cute creatures to go ‘aaaaaaaah’ over; both brand new molds and existing molds with new prints. Most of these can be found in the 4 sets that we will be taking a look at today, going from the smallest to the largest.

Parts review: 71048 LEGO® Minifigures Series 27

I might be a bit late in saying, but LEGO® Minifigures are a bit of a phenomenon. Fifteen years, 47 actual series when including licensed themes, and 727 figures – many of which it would be difficult to imagine ever existing outside of this theme.

There have been hundreds of unique parts introduced, some of which have made it into standard sets by virtue of their usefulness. The posing stand, aka Bar 1L with Angled Hollow Stud (65578) would definitely be a candidate for that. Will Series 27 contain a game-changer of similar importance?

Review: 76968 Dinosaur Fossils - Tyrannosaurus rex from LEGO® Jurassic World

We're going to build old bones! Massive Tyrannosaurus rex fossil bones from LEGO® bricks, to be exact. First though, we're going to dig into the new parts buried in LEGO® Jurassic World 76968 Dinosaur Fossils.

Review: 40506 LEGO® Fabuland® Tribute from LEGO® House

It's no secret that New Elementary has a soft spot for the LEGO® FABULAND® theme. We've covered it on many occasions, examining its colours, exclusive elements, discontinued moulds and legacy.

Evidently, we're not the only ones with a fondness for Fabuland, as it is the subject of this year's LEGO® House exclusive set, 40506 LEGO Fabuland Tribute. This will be the sixth LEGO House exclusive set to be released and you can read more about the design process in our article covering the reveal of the LEGO Fabuland Tribute set. 

Review: 10345 Flower Arrangement from LEGO® Botanicals

Some of us may still be in the depths of winter, but the flowers in the LEGO® Botanicals collection are always in full bloom, ready to cheer anyone up, whatever the time of year! 

10345 Flower Arrangement is the theme's latest and largest offering featuring a spectacular display of camellia, peonies, hydrangea, and lillies to name but a few. And what's more, they come in their own LEGO vase! 

Abundant recolours and plentiful nice parts usage are a matter of course for this theme, so let's take a look at what 10345 Flower Arrangement has to offer the casual or dedicated LEGO builder.

Review: 71489 Cooper's Gaming Controller Jet from LEGO® DREAMZzz™

71489 Cooper's Gaming Controller Jet is one of the sets released on 1 January 2025 as part of LEGO® DREAMZzz™ season 3.

This is the last of my individual LEGO DREAMZzz set reviews, and 71489 Cooper's Gaming Controller Jet is definitely worth a closer look.

Review: 42656 Heartlake City Airport and Airplane from LEGO® Friends™

“Come on and fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away”

Heartlake City Airlines flies all over the world, and its passengers bring back exotic new elements from their travels for you to enjoy. So fasten your seatbelts as we go on a journey.

Review: 21355 The Evolution of STEM from LEGO® Ideas

It's time to hit the books with LEGO® Ideas newest set, 21355 The Evolution of STEM, based on an Ideas submission from fan designer Daniel Bradley who kindly lent us some insight into the set.

 

The Evolution of STEM celebrates science, math and history with a collection of mini models bursting from the pages of a brick-built encyclopaedia. Without further ado let's book it to the new elements!

Review: 43266 Cinderella's Dress from LEGO® Disney

LEGO® Disney 43266 Cinderella's Dress is one of two new 'dress' sets revealed earlier this year, the other being 43262 Maleficent's and Cruella De Vil's Dresses. 

We have this set for early review as there's a useful new mould in this set, along with some new prints and recolours. Even if Disney Princesses are not your thing, read on, as new elements always bring excitement.

Review: 71490 Izzie and Bunchurro the Gaming Bunny from LEGO® DREAMZzz™

We have already taken a in-depth look at all the new elements found in January 2025's LEGO® DREAMZzz™ sets but there's plenty still to see, as I continue my individual set reviews.

Next up for review is 71490 Izzie and Bunchurro the Gaming Bunny; a set that has some new moulds, a new print and quite a few recolours. Is it worth the price tag?