Although a year late, I spotted a Bricktober 2014 Theatre set that was going for a little less than the market rate due to a damaged box, I thought why not give it a go. If you’re after the TL;DR excuse, save your cash, move on. You won't miss anything. It never caught my eye in the first place, but it wouldn't be fair to judge a Lego set without actually owning it - and now, I can safely say, these are over priced, and it's a shame that Lego would want to release these unimpressive models. If you really must have it, bricklink these sets instead of buying them off the secondary (overpriced) market.
Box/Instructions (Rating : N/A)
I bought a set with a damaged box, so in all fairness, I'll not comment. As for instructions, I always download PDFs as opposed to using the enclosed guides. Nothin
g spectacular.
Parts (Rating : 3/5)
I noticed a fair number of transparent parts. Percentage to the total bricks, I think it's higher than normal sets. All 164 parts made of common off the shelf bricks, nothing rare here to go after.
What I did like are the dark blue elements. These somehow look a little more grand and probably not a common color theme, that I wished I see more uses for and latest spotted being the Ideas set for Dr Who.
The Build (Rating : 2/5)
Straightforward layering the walls of the theatre at the start, and the end, adding in the details to the front of the theatre to finish off such as the lamp post and building facade. What you do notice is that there are two technic pins at the sides sticking out at the sides that will be joined to the next building if you had collected all four of the buildings. I must say this itself is a nice move that shows some effort of planning for the fans out there ensuring that the pieces all line up together once displayed. The minature cars (or vehicles) were a nice touch but it didn't really strike me as needed.
The completed model (Rating : 2/5)
I am not impressed with the overall look as it seemed to try to capture the essence of a theatre but being too small, too perhaps too many details were left out. I must admit, that the size and footprint of the completed build is tight and gives it a cute look, but it seemed to me that a whole bunch of bricks were meshed together and had it not been labelled as a theatre, I would have a hard time figuring it out. Even after knowing its a theatre, I don't seem to appreciate the looks. Perhaps I'm biased but in this part of the world (Asia) theaters do not really resemble this build.
Overall opinion (Rating : 2/5)
Buy it for the parts if you must, but unless you're a fan of these mini-modular and simply a collector with an OCD to must have everything "complete", I'd recommend to give it a pass. At the time of writing, the market for these are going for about SGD $40 a pop. I'd not part anything more than SGD $25 for these, and even that I'd think twice. Save that $40 and top it up a little to perhaps enjoy a Hulkbuster that has more playability. 👍