And there we have it. Less than two years ago I built my first Lego modular building, Fire Brigade, and was pretty pleased with it. So pleased that I eventually got another, because it looked lonely. And then another, and then another, and then I decided that I at least wouldn’t get the least interesting two because they wouldn’t fit in my shelves anyway, and then I bought new shelves, and would you look at that? All nine modulars lined up. Well, except for Town Hall which I tore down to make a more interesting build.

The plan was to do the same with Palace Cinema. Palace Cinema is actually a pretty cheap set around here. It costs the same as most modulars, $149, in the US, but those sets tend to go for 1849 SEK here ($249!). Meanwhile Palace Cinema is a relatively decent 1299 SEK. And since I got it at a 25% discount from a major retailer, it was suddenly cheaper than many big sets like Lonely Mountain or Ninjago City. With 2169 parts, that’s a pretty damn good value. But what do we get for our money?

Palace Cinema is the third corner building and as such, it has a ton of tiles for the pavement. It’s a bit classier than other because of the walk of fame, with eight printed star tiles, but otherwise it’s kind of a pain. Once you start building the first floor, there really isn’t much happening. It’s much like Grand Emporium that way – some neat detailing on the outside but rather empty otherwise. Would it have hurt to have more posters (which look good and add plenty of detail outside)?

The upper floor houses the actual theatre and it’s very disappointing. There’s only six seats, the screen is partly obscured by the curtains, the operator just sits on a platform behind the others, and there’s a ton of windows which would make an actual show almost impossible to see. This is partly due to the amount of space available and this is supposed to be an old-time cinema, but it’s still rather dull.

As a build experience, all the cool stuff is concentrated to the corner wall. The doors are nicely made and hinge in a neat way. The grand sign looks awesome and incorporates some cool techniques to have the text mirrored on both sides, while still having a very simple build. And the top section goes together in a very neat way, with some ideas borrowed from Café Corner.

However, I would still have broken it down very shortly, if it wasn’t for the fact that the very idea of Palace Cinema makes it an awesome display piece. The set comes with a limo and is supposed to set up some grand premiere, and it’s not like there’s a lack of movie related figures to put there. I used the gang from The Lego Movie, but you could make a great scene with practically any of the licensed themes. And it feels natural to just crowd the streets around it, unlike for example Pet Shop which would look weird like that.

This makes Palace Cinema rather endearing, after all, and I think I need to change my plans for now. It’s still not one of the greats, but it’s much more interesting than the boring Town Hall and looks much better than the prototypish Market Street. And with such a low price, it’s quite a decent buy. I might add that it’s also a great source of dark tan pieces, especially the 1×8 bricks which are, so far, unique to this.