Building Experience

The set contains 3955 pieces, 5 minifigures and a lot of stickers: 34 to be exact. But at least we have Brick Jordan.

The building starts with a bang: the first envelope is dedicated to the burglars and their van.

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You can see it here with and without stickers and make your choice when you build it.

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The robbers’ expressions are spot on, Harry with his golden tooth is immediately recognizable as well as Marv. Unfortunately here we have a major letdown: the latter is the only one with a second expression.

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Actually, the expression is perfect with the ironed face, but I was expecting a second one also on Harry, maybe alarmed or without the gold tooth. I know, is impossible to hide it under that cap, but I would have tried to change it or even put a totally new head inside the set.

The other minifigures include Kevin with his famous screaming face, his mom Kate and the old Marley. I would have loved to have also the pizza guy. It’s noticeable the presence of two pairs of articulated short legs (YAY!).

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Building the house is fun except for the choice of filling the interior after the walls. I found some difficulties placing the objects and sometimes I’ve even removed part of the wall to do it, which, by the way, are made with brand new masonry bricks recolored in reddish-brown.

I love the way you can see the interiors, either by removing the floor like a modular or opening the walls keeping the whole building intact. You can also have a view of the attic by raising the roof and I think all of these were wonderful design choices! 

Another hard choice that was made was relative to the kitchen and basement. Both are scenery of some traps so it was almost mandatory to include them in the build.

Unfortunately, the kitchen should be at ground level and the basement, well, in the basement.

This is, at best, challenging to transport in LEGO form, especially when all your main building is at ground level. The designers chose to elevate the kitchen and build the stairs to the door, then removed the ones to the basement which, of course, is totally inaccurate but understandable. 

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What is not acceptable to me is the absence of the inner basement stair. That scene where Marv stings his foot is iconic in my opinion and putting a sticker with his sock on the floor is not doing it any justice. 

At least the designers included a mechanism to recreate the scene where Marv is gifted with an iron in the face. 

Interior

This is where most of the story happens. It was fun to recognize all the rooms while I was building them and think about the scenes of the movie that happened there.

The house is filled with a lot of mini-build like an awesome fireplace or a pendulum clock. In the basement you can find the furnace with a light brick, to scare the poor kid.

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Every room is super-detailed, you can scam the burglars using Brick Jordan’s poster or fight them with paint cans. 

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The room I liked the most is the bathroom without any doubt. It’s small but very well thought of and is home to one of the funniest scenes.

Too bad the mirror does not reflect properly. 

There’s also Kevin’s parent’s bedroom with the big red bed to jump on. It’s even possible to play with some action features, like moving Brick Jordan, pushing Kevin down the stairs with the sled. We can even reproduce the scene where Kevin explores Buzz’s room and falls from the shelves. 

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Last but not least is the attic, where the poor Kevin will be forgotten. I love how in that tiny space the designers were able to place some furniture and decorations. 

The kitchen is detached from the main building and for this reason, has enough space for a lot of details, like a fridge or the TV with a frame from the black and white blockbuster (but fake) movie “Angels with Filthy Souls”. It also has a brand new door with a pet door which is one of the highlights of the set. 

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Exterior

The exterior of the house resembles perfectly what we saw in the movie. The iconic design is immediately recognizable in the facade with the big windows.

What I really, REALLY feel missing are all the lights. The small ones placed on the bottom are not enough to give that “i-can-see-you-from-space” look that is one of the first things that jump in my mind when I think about the movie.

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In the back of the house, we can see the kitchen and the basement doors and we can place here the treehouse where Kevin escapes from the burglars.

Behind the scenes

Shooting the interiors was not an easy task. The building is photo-friendly with all those apertures but I needed more space, so it has not been unusual for me to tear down some walls. 

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But, as I said before, I missed all the lights on the facade, so I tried my best to shoot a picture where the effect was “enlightening”.

Gathering all the LED lights I needed, the first issue I had to overcome was: “how could I stick them to the wall?”

After different (poor) tries, I came up with a door frame where I wound the copper wire with the lights and I stuck it to the wall with some blue tack.

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Not the most appealing way but the picture would have been frontal so the thickness of the frame was negligible.

The second issue was the snow. I could have used baking soda, salt or anything like that, but I decided that simple cotton was the best solution for me, sacrificing the realistic surroundings since the main subject was the house and not the garden.

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Once the setup was ready I turned on all the lights placed inside the house and I took different shots, moving the lights to fill the shadow zones.

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The post-production work was a matter of stacking the pictures and removing the wires and here it is: Home Alone house with Christmas lights!

Conclusions

21330 Home Alone is undoubtedly a fun set even if you’re not a fan of the movie.

Having a building completely closed is a dream for anyone who wants to integrate it into their city because it gives a good view from any angle.

The addition of the burglars’ van is highly appreciated and I’m super happy it was included in the set.

The interiors are well studied and I like all the lovely details.

Unfortunately, I feel missing some components that were central to the story, like a second expression for Harry and the basement staircase and this brings down my score a little bit, resulting in a 9/10.

The 21330: Home Alone will be available starting from November 1st for €249.99 / $249.99 / £229.99 on LEGO.com and certified stores.