Review: 41448 Heartlake City Movie Theatre

This is really good, possibly the best LEGO theatre set ever made. Going to get this set when it has a decent discount for sure. The build looks amazing and the figures are well detailed.

Thanks for the detailed review @MeganL

@TomKazutara said:
"What is it with toilets in friend sets ?
They are everywhere, when do you even saw toilets in City the last time ?"

probably for the girls doing their make-up

It’s just cruel to release a movie theater set right now... I only got to see 2 films in a cinema this year. The set does look good though.

Looks like the Friends are watching Thelma and Louise - quite appropriate, I think!

Interesting idea to pivot the walls of the cinema to give either the frontage, or the inside walls for the drinks counter and toilet door. The use of a mobile phone as a screen to watch movies is novel, although the build seems quite simple.

"Donut" instead of "doughnut", "a HLC", instead of "an HLC"... LEGO should really hire a native English speaker for proof reading. It's getting ridiculous.
And where is the gender neutral toilet or the one for people with disabilities? Not cool LEGO :)

@R0Sch said:
"And where is the gender neutral toilet or the one for people with disabilities? Not cool LEGO :)
"

The bathroom is actually unisex judging by the sticker on the door!

@Minifig290 said:
"This is really good, possibly the best LEGO theatre set ever made. Going to get this set when it has a decent discount for sure. The build looks amazing and the figures are well detailed.

Thanks for the detailed review @MeganL"

It looks good, but the Palace Cinema is the best Lego theatre ever made, simply for the fact that it included a green brick separator while one built movie poster advertises a horror movie called "The Brick Separator", in which a green brick separator wrecks havoc in a Lego city. I love this little detail, they could easily use the orange one, but they used the green one. When you open the bags you are a bit irritated, but when you progress to the part with the movie poster you simply have to smile!
Also the one in 10184 is nice, but it has stamps across multiple pieces, so the Palace Cinema is the best. ;-)

HLC is not an acronym. Acronyms are pronounced as words; for instance: NASA, laser, radar. I assumed HLC meant Heartlake City, so where does "High" come from? If the movie is "A Heartlake City Story", then the abbreviation on the sign would be perfectly clear to all the residents of Heartlake City.

@CM4Sci said:
"Someone please explain why every Friends building has a bathroom. I don’t get it. "

Kids like bathrooms in general, for starters. And for a movie theater especially, bathrooms feel like a necessary fixture—you might not always use the bathroom every time you visit a restaurant or other business, but it's rare that you DON'T have to make use of the theater bathroom after sitting through a long movie munching on concessions.

I'm a little perplexed by the complaints in the review about the lavender flooring. What would be gained, exactly, by making the floor color more "realistic"? Personally I feel like lavender is just generally a more interesting color than a boring grey or tan would be. It's vibrant enough to contrast well with the reds, whites, and blues that make up the rest of the theater's color scheme, but soft enough not to overpower them.

@DavidBrick said:
" @Huw said:
"In the acronym the H is said 'aich' in British English so an before it is correct, so the sticker is wrong.

"If the acronym begins with a vowel sound, use the indefinite article an before the acronym. If the acronym begins with a consonant sound, use the indefinite article a before the acronym.""

High is pronounced 'hahy' according to dictionary.com. I have no idea where you get 'aich' from, where do you pronounce a 'ch' in 'high'?"

“Aich” is the phonetic pronounciation of the letter H. Huw is correct. You would say “A HEARTLAKE CITY STORY” if saying the entire title. But if you just say “HLC STORY” the pronunciation changes and thus you would use AN instead of A.

Languages are weird.

@R0Sch said:
""Donut" instead of "doughnut", "a HLC", instead of "an HLC"... LEGO should really hire a native English speaker for proof reading. It's getting ridiculous."

“Donut” is a perfectly acceptable alternative spelling of “doughnut. I’m a native English speaker, and I’ve seen it spelled that way quite often. It’s much more common in the USA and Canada than it is in other Anglophone countries, but it’s still a correct spelling.

You’re right on “A HLC,” though.

That hard hairpiece was actually modelled off Megan Rothrock, author of the 'LEGO Adventure' series of books. She posed for the LEGO parts sculptor while she was in Denmark and working on the second book.

The sets all have bathrooms, because I assume that children like to play with it. My daughter has the Heartlake restaurant, and every time she plays with it, someone needs to go to the loo first, filling it with a plate in any appropriate colour.

Great review! I love how cleverly the designers were able to construct so many iconic movie theater features like the slushie cups and machines, the cushy looking chairs, the film projector, and the art deco facade and marquee. The facade does a great job using curved panels and heart motifs in ways that we haven't seen in previous LEGO Friends sets.

The contrasting colors used throughout the entire build do an amazing job of evoking the feeling of a dazzling late-night premiere, even when viewing the set itself under bright lighting like in these photos. And the efficiency of the way the box office is set up with a ticket window facing outside and a concession stand facing inside likewise deserves special mention.

It's EXTREMELY cool that the entire front of the building unfolds to give you a "mini-doll's eye view" as if you're actually there watching the movie! I still find it brilliant in general how sets like 41349 and 60228 include space for you to set up a phone or media player so you have the option of adding a working screen, even without the set itself having to include any expensive electronic gimmicks. But I feel like this is perhaps the most immersive "big screen" experience we've seen in any set to date, whether or not you choose to include a smart device when playing with or displaying the set.

I do feel a bit disappointed that the text on the movie posters is written in an indecipherable scribble, since it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity not to include any in-universe movie titles like we've often see on movie posters in other sets.

That said, I love how the spaceship on the left-hand poster is a direct reference to the one on the Classic Space logo, right down to the way the solid line representing its path breaks apart into two smaller dashes where it meets with the spaceship itself! It's a subtle reference, but a delightful one nonetheless!

Julien's new "post-reboot" design is fantastic, especially since he's the first male mini-doll character with glasses! I also like that he has a more distinctive hairstyle than the more generic "boy band" hairstyle that was so overused in the early years of the LEGO Friends theme.

All in all, it's great to see that the LEGO Friends designers continue to come up with exciting new subjects to turn into sets, and that Heartlake City continues to expand with brand-new sights and attractions. Even without being a very dedicated LEGO Friends collector, each new wave of sets in recent years has gotten me more and more emotionally invested in this world and its characters. I definitely feel that bodes well for the theme's future!

Personally, I think the lavender floor is appropriate for the carpet in a cinema; in my experience, they can tend towards distinctive colours like that for the flooring, especially if it's a part of the cinema chain's brand image. It is a little awkward that said carpet appears to then continue outside the building; but I think given the design of the set, that was probably unavoidable.

@TomKazutara said:
"What is it with toilets in friend sets ?
They are everywhere, when do you even saw toilets in City the last time ?"
Apparently they're one of the sorts of realistic details that girls care a lot about and expect to see during play testing. I can only speculate about what the reason for that is, but I suspect one significant factor is how common these sorts of "everyday" features are in other traditionally girl-targeted toys like dollhouses and doll playsets. If your favorite non-LEGO toys include those sorts of features by default, then it will stand out conspicuously if LEGO playsets lack those types of features

By contrast, many more boy-oriented toys like toy car and action figure playsets are more focused on "action" play scenarios rather than "slice-of-life" play scenarios, so kids whose favorite non-LEGO toys fall into those categories probably aren't going to be as surprised if LEGO sets lack "slice of life" type play features like bathrooms.

That said, "everyday" features like bedrooms and bathrooms have definitely become a lot more common in the City theme over the past decade or so. Some recent examples of City sets with toilets in them include 60291, 60262, 60246, 60141, 60130, 60104, 60076, 60073, 60072, and 60069. I suspect this increase speaks both to how many girls have gotten into other themes by way of LEGO Friends, and how kids in general often enjoy the humor that features like toilets can add to a set.

@R0Sch said:
"And where is the gender neutral toilet or the one for people with disabilities? Not cool LEGO :)"
This is pretty obviously marked as a gender-neutral bathroom, and frankly most online comments I've seen from nonbinary people about gender-neutral restroom signage emphasize how obnoxious it is when bathroom signs resort to representing them as some sort of chimera split into "male" and "female" halves, when most of the time they're just normal people who wear normal clothes (regardless of whether those clothes are masculine-coded, feminine-coded, or neither). And like anybody else, they don't care much about restroom signs at all as long as they're able to use the toilet without being judged for it.

A wheelchair icon would have been a nice addition, but would not have made sense unless the bathroom itself were made wheelchair accessible by making it wider and adding grab rails on the walls adjacent to the toilet. There's much more to accessibility than just signage, as any disabled person could tell you.

@nick3c said:
"Really you like that “the starlet is a woman of color” seriously give me a break with all this stupid political correctness, it’s so overbearing it makes the review unbearable."
It might not seem like a notable thing to you if people that look like you have been well represented, but for a kid who isn't used to seeing someone who looks like themselves represented in a set like this, it can be a pretty big deal. I hope you'll learn to understand the point of view of other races and be more compassionate and understanding.