LEGO 76119 Batmobile: Pursuit of the Joker Review

While all LEGO sets are treated equally in the Roffel household when it comes to our likes and dislikes, a select few are elevated to ‘display’ status and find a prominent position on our shelf. An example would be the fantastic – and now retired – Wall-E set that was released a number of years ago. We found it, built it, and it has never left our living room shelf. We added another item to the shelf last week: the batmobile. Thanks to our friends at LEGO, we had the chance to take a look at the Batmobile: Pursuit of Joker!

Title: 76119 Batmobile: Pursuit of the Joker

Pieces: 342

Price: 39.99 CAD 

The Build

While only 342 pieces, the Batmobile ended up being a larger build than I anticipated, with the vehicle itself coming in around 9 inches long and 2 inches wide. Of course, the set comes with a ton of black pieces, perfect for Batman! My two kids – 9 & 5 – took turns putting this set together, with one child building bag 1, and the other building bag 2.

Finding the right pieces for my 5 year old proved to be a pretty big challenge, and ultimately since he is outside the 7+ recommended age, I suppose this wasn’t much of a shocker. Since he was attempting to build the first part of the set, the amount of time was significantly longer than my 9 year old who took the product over the finish line. The biggest issues my youngest faced was putting together the mechanism that makes the flame on the back of the batmobile spin as you move it along a flat surface. As he tried to follow the instructions closely, he started having issues with his gear placement.

Thankfully, LEGO has released the LEGO Life application for smartphones and tablets, which allows more control of the instructions for a specific LEGO set, including the ability to zoom in and take a closer look at specific aspects of the set. Once I handed my younger son that tool, getting the gears in place to make the mechanism work was much easier.

What I really liked about this set was when decals on pieces were required, LEGO opted to print them on as opposed to including a sheet of stickers. While I understand why LEGO might add stickers to their sets, the printed pieces are better in terms of overall quality, and how they look when on the set. Sticker, in my opinion, can be hit an miss, and I do consider myself a fairly proficient sticker expert when it comes to LEGO. Still, the small mistakes become magnified on the final product. Printed is better, and on this set, LEGO delivered.

Playability

While fun to build, the Batmobile is even more fun to play with. The large car makes it the perfect toy to zoom around the room, and with two included miniatures – a Batman and a Joker – both my kids can enjoy the set at the same time. And, frankly, it looks freaking awesome!

The two figures come with tons of accessories as well, including Joker’s stud shooter which can fling small ‘light’ pieces across the room, and a plethora of bat gadgets for Batman to use, including his trusty throwing stars…er…bats? As noted above, the added element of the rear fire spinning as you drive the car really captures the imagination of young minds!

The cockpit on the Batmobile easily opens, allowing you to slot in a mini figure to drive the car. The car is also equipped with two stud shooters, making capturing the joker easier than ever before.

With the two new minifgure – yes these are new designs as of June 2019 – and a nearly foot long car, there really isn’t anything negative to say about this set. If the LEGO lover in your life is a fan of the Batman series, this is an easily recommended purchase!