The Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown, the largest of the Infinity War Lego sets released so far (not counting that "Totally not UCS" Hulkbuster), and fittingly, where one can find the Time Stone (Eye of Agomoto not included sadly), and the most amount of minifigures. Is it worth the cost? Well...
Starting with the Minifigures, with this set you will be able to get another Iron Man Mk 50, the Iron Spider, Doctor Strange, Cull Obsidian, and Ebony Maw (No love for Wong again?). The Iron Man minifigure is exactly the same as the one that came in the Thanos Ultimate Battle set, just without the backpack. Doctor Strange, while similar looking, only reuses the face print from his last Lego set. The prints on the two minifigure bodies are different shades by the looks of it, this new one is darker, however, I could be wrong about this as I am currently relying now on internet pictures (check my twitter feed for why). What is new though is the hairpiece, and the two-piece cloak. The cape half uses the newer, softer material, while the collar uses the older, harder material. Its a nice balance between the two styles, and now that they are two pieces, if you don't like the collar, you can just take it off. Simple. Both Strange and Iron Man have their own effects parts, and at this point, I hope I've made my point clear about those pieces.
The Iron Spider Minifigure does look really good and is a solid interpretation of his movie counterpart. The printing work is well done, though I do wish that the back piece from the Outriders was moulded in at least Dark Red in order to better blend into the figure. I do like how they handled the robot leg appendages, though it was a mild spoiler for the movie. Ebony Maw is another great print job... but when compared to the movie, it just looks out of place. I don't know if this is going for comic book accuracy or not, but as it stands, it is the weakest of the minifigures. Both Iron Spider and Maw have their own effect pieces, but these are, surprisingly, ammo for launchers. By pushing down on the back of them, they friction fire out of the minifig hands and... in my attempts, it doesn't work. It worked when I didn't want it to, like if the figure landed on the floor the wrong way, but my attempts to get it to fire only led to the piece being dislodged due to being stuck on my own finger.
As for the big fig of the set, Cull Obsidian. On the plus side, he's in a better position then Thanos is in terms of possibility, as he only has one gimped arm due to body sculpting, and the weapon he has is well built, but its another case where I'm not sure if they were going for comic or movie accuracy with this one, alongside all the problems of a big fig.
To cover the set itself, this is technically two buildings. The Sanctum Sanctorum, and Peter Parker's apartment building. It's a nice idea, but I will admit that, if my options were either have half of the Sanctorum and half of another building or a dedicated Sanctum Sanctorum, I'd have rathered the dedicated Sanctorum, especially as this is built more like a dollhouse. There's very little cross-compatibility between the two buildings. Ironically though, most of the functions are on the Peter side of the building, rather than the Doctor's. On Peter's side, there is a small button that can be pressed to have the window of the Pizza Restaurant blow out, along with potentially the oven because that doesn't lock into place when building the structure (much to my frustration). The same technique is used on a window on the Sanctum Sanctorum to reveal the Time Stone ("Great place to hide it Strange, no one will ever try the window!"), and a window at the level where Peter's apartment is. Its a simple but neat trick. There's also a trap door on Peter's side that you could use to replicate that moment from Civil War where the trap door hide his suit in, and (while needing to move a decorative corner piece, you can move the two buildings to a closed position, a 90 degree corner position, or a city street (straight line) position (and everything in between). The most complicated gimmick though is a wind-up web cable gimmick, where you can wind up and down a bit of long white lego string (a thin rope with two studs moulded on the ends) by turning the water tower on top of Peter's apartment. There are no complex gimmicks in this set, which a part of me finds disappointing cause I do like seeing complex gimmicks in Lego sets, but this set does go for looks over function.
As for the looks themselves, They're nice looking structures, but rather basic. Most of the detail went into the outside of the buildings and its there where the set shines, but there's not much more going on behind the scenes, as there's very little interior work done for either building. This is what I was hoping for to be the reason why the functions are so basic, but it under delivers here as well. Granted, there is nothing stopping builders from adding to this in any way, but I am here to review what is given, and what's given never seems to meet my expectations, and I don't know if that's a "me problem" or a "laziness/ low budget problem".
I can't really recommend this set at full price. This is the biggest and most expensive set in the Infinity War Wave after all. If you're just looking for a display piece, or want the parts from it to build your own creation, then you can find more enjoyment out of this set then I can. If you want it as a toy, and want to play with it, then you're going to be disappointed with the functions, but might still be able to play with your own scenarios. This is a Lego Dollhouse after all. Up next on the main site is Thor Ragnarok, and up next for here is the final Lego Marvel set I will be doing for a while, where we see a Hulkbuster at last!
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