LEGO Beauty and the Beast Castle Review: A Build Worthy of Its Namesake

LEGO bringing beloved structures to life via plastic bricks is a tale as old as time, and the company has only gotten better at packing that nostalgia into its stunning and extravagant sets. In addition to the stellar Krusty Burger set from The Simpsons, this summer has seen LEGO deliver a full-on journey back to the ’90s with its massive Beauty and the Beast Castle set. At 2916 pieces, this Disney throwback is just short of earning “behemoth” status, but it’s one of the bigger (and more challenging) movie-inspired builds in some time.

The Beauty and the Beast Castle, which is now available from LEGO, is an incredibly detailed set that gives you enough build time and nostalgic satisfaction to justify its hefty price tag. This set retails for $279.99, so it’s on the pricier side of LEGO’s offerings, but still mostly affordable for collector’s and fans. For comparison’s sake, the Castle’s price is on par with the Home Alone house, the Motorized Lighthouse set, and The Shire from The Lord of the Rings.

Like most other situations with LEGO, you’re getting what you pay for here. The entire set took about 405 minutes to build — just under seven total hours spread across a couple of sessions. There are five minifigs listed as a part of the set (Belle, Beast, Gaston, LeFou, Maurice) but that number is honestly selling the characters short. This set also includes beloved characters like Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts, but they’re technically not “minifigs.” You actually build a lot of the castle staff from other pieces, creating a deeper level of investment in them, as well as a more adorable final product overall.

The Castle set consists of 21 bags that are split between two construction manuals — 11 in the first and 10 in the second. The minifigs are distributed throughout the build, with Belle coming in the very first bag and Gaston hiding out in the final bag.

The true joy of this build actually meshes perfectly with one of the main themes of Beauty and the Beast, in that there’s a lot more hiding under the surface than it may seem. What you see isn’t always what you get, at least as far as the process is concerned. The stairs in Bag 2 and the kitchen in Bag 13 are great examples of this, as you don’t really know how the elements are going to come together until you’re well into the section. They’re tricky until you can see the finish line and things fall into place in such satisfying ways.

The kitchen and dining room (which feature several characters and a spinning “Be Our Guest” homage) consist of a ton of individual pieces that don’t feel like much, until they start occupying the same space and you realize there’s a much grander plan ahead.

Even the trickiest parts of the build (the exteriors in the final few bags of Book 1 are especially taxing to anyone with bigger hands) are so satisfying to complete. Just when it starts to feel tedious, the right piece clicks into place and you see the bigger picture that you’ve been blind to. It’s amazing how often that happens in this build, certainly more so than in any other set I’ve put together.

Maybe the best and most satisfying section of the entire build is the library, though I don’t want to note exactly where that arrives in the project. That’s such a great surprise once you realize what it is you’re building, because it starts in such a confusing place.

When all is said and done, the little details help this LEGO set stand out in a big way. The grand staircase clicks in and out of the Castle with ease, allowing you to easily display the characters in a scene alongside the structure itself. There’s the spinning dance floor in the ballroom and the tables full of “grey stuff” in the dining room that evoke the nostalgia of Beauty and the Beast. To top it all off there’s also the Beast himself, who has both a “monster” and a human form. That kind of transformation is usually accompanied by the frustration of where to put the extra parts that allow the character to change, but this castle actually has a hidden area built in, specifically to hide the extra Beast pieces when they’re not being used. It’s such a small thing but it helps take this design to an extraordinary level.

Beauty and the Beast is one of the most iconic films in Disney history, and it’s only fitting that a LEGO set depicting its grandest setting is met with the same level of care and attention to detail.

Click Here to Order the Beauty and the Beast Castle from LEGO

A review copy of LEGO’s Beauty and the Beast Castle set was provided by the manufacturer.