We Built 76271 LEGO Batman: The Animated Series Gotham City

Released on 1^st April 2024, LEGO Batman: The Animated Series Gotham City (76271) retails for £259.99 on the LEGO store and has a brick count of 4,210 pieces. It's an 18+ set so focussed on the adult fans of LEGO and is an absolute behemoth of a set. Upon carefully opening the box, you'll discover 44 bags of bricks, which might appear overwhelming at first, but the finished product is truly impressive.

TO THE BATCAVE

The excitement was brimming over for the LEGO DC Batman 76271 set; we were like kids in a toy store! However, the 44 bags, two huge instruction manuals and over sixty stickers were quite overwhelming. That said we knew we must persevere and so we started the build. Each of the bags has a chapter name in the instruction book which gives you a little hint as to what you are about to create. The first bag rewarded us with LEGO Batman, the concrete edge with two gargoyles on either side and space for the LEGO Minifigures to stand. The second bag starts off the actual main build by creating the top right-hand corner in which you see Wayne Manor, the moon and a police blimp. Bags four and five allow us to build the LEGO Batcave and LEGO Batmobile. The micro LEGO Batman is similar to a LEGO Advent Calendar kind of build.

It seems a shame to cover up the LEGO Batmobile and the Batman & Robin tiles but cover them up we do with the Stacked Deck. The next few bags add more to the right-hand side of this art piece and the Riddler, Clayface and Catwoman are hiding amongst these buildings. We then build Gotham City Court and have to say that the use of stacking piece 23950 to replicate miniature LEGO stairs is amazing.

LET THE CRAZY BEGIN

Having begun to create the lefthand side of LEGO Gotham City, we add in Arkham Asylum - everyone’s favourite sanitorium! No spoilers as to who is inhabiting the cells but the large amount of green foliage is definitely a massive clue as to one of the residents. Plus, we have a new LEGO Joker Minifigure with a very cool double-sided head print and the suit is a true representation of the Joker in the 1992 Animated Series. More Police blimps dot the skyline with their searchlights and the LEGO Batwing is scanning the sky for mischief makers.

HOLY BRICKS AND PIECES WE’VE FINISHED

4,210 bricks and roughly 9-10 hours later, the LEGO Batman: The Animated Series Gotham City is complete. Wow, this is possibly the BEST piece of art that LEGO has given us thus far, it really is amazing how incredible the scene looks. The building up of the layers is a masterpiece in logistics and the Art Deco font is recreated in stunning fashion. Not to forget the four LEGO Minifigures; Batman, Catwoman, Joker and Harley. These are all great LEGO Minifigures and look awesome atop the concrete precipice guarded by Gotham’s gargoyles.

IS THIS A HIGH FIVE OR A LOW BLOW?

We would love to be able to give the LEGO DC 76271 model top marks however, the build was quite arduous due to all the fiddly little pieces. The instructions at times were not clear as to where bricks were to be placed, which resulted in having to go back a few steps a couple of times to reassess placement. The hidden tiles with the myriad of characters are an awesome feature, but the fact that these were all stickers instead of printed tiles was quite sad. For a set of this magnitude, it is a shame that there weren’t more printed pieces as we had only one 2x2 red printed Batman tile and the large Batman Batsignal piece. The overall aesthetic of LEGO Batman: The Animated Series Gotham City is AMAZING, a thing of absolute beauty and every time you look at it you will notice another detail.

OUR RATING: 7.5/10