75916 Dilophosaurus Ambush is the next step up from 75915 Pteranodon Capture, retailing for around £30 and boasting a bigger piece count for your money.

Again, the box looks gorgeous and I really dig it!

The contents include to baggies of bits, a segmented baggy of dino-bits, two halves of a ball, stickers and instructions! Piece count is 248 all together but, as always, it’s minifigure time!

On the minifig front, we have yet another ACU security guard whom I will call “Lunch” and Gray, the young lad in all the trailers. The ACU is in the standard uniform but this time rocking a baseball cap and a stun stick. Gray, being the younger and shorter of the two brothers, has surprisingly long legs. Yes, I can imagine the reason why they gave him regular minifig legs is that the shorter legs, coupled with the hair piece would have made him look like a Hobbit on holiday! Also bears a striking resemblance to Chunk from The Goonies. Poor Ty Simpson…

The Dilophosaurus, whose previous standout performance was spitting acid in Dennis Nedry’s face in the original Jurassic Park, seems to have grown up a bit, now being as tall as a raptor! Now, I don’t know if this is just a cost-saving measure since the Dilophosaurus does share the Raptor’s base body and bears a slightly remoulded head but still, I really love this guy.

First part of the building process includes those mysterious transparent semi-spheres! A little gearing is added to the inside and you have Jurassic World’s signature Gyrosphere! This little viewing vehicle looks pretty cool in the movie and is replicated as close as it could be. I’m actually amazed that Gray stays seated and upright as the sphere rolls, I was half-expecting him to just spin around inside. Such a unique vehicle is a fantastic way to kick off this build!

The rest of the first instruction book is the skeleton of the jeep. In terms of building, it was pretty paint by numbers, especially in terms of vehicle building with only some gearing in the rear of the vehicle for an action gimmick.

Book 2 focuses on the remaining shell of the jeep as well as the roll bar, winch, and accessories. There’s some interesting choices which surprised me, such as building your own winch rather than using the winch pieces that exist already and the blue crowbars acting as guide bars for the windshield, though they don’t stay clipped on too well.

The finished jeep looks FANTASTIC. You can’t get much more iconic than a Jurassic Park jeep. All white and re– Oh. Yeah, something about the branding for Jurassic World (I assume in-universe) means that the jeeps are blue now and that’s fine but let’s face it, this jeep would have look beastly in the iconic red and white. The rear wheel turns to tip out boxes of accessories and I hate it. It’s a pointless gimmick. Still, having storage for supplies is a good thing and just adds to the character of the vehicle. The roll bar is pretty interesting, moving on ball-jointed struts to allow better access to the interior.

All together, I heartily recommend this set. It’s got superb play value and lots of unique pieces that anyone can have a ton of fun with (like I’ve done above). 75916 Dilophosaurus Ambush is £29.99 and is available online as well as from most good retailers from May 1st.

75915 Pteranodon Capture is the entry level set for the brand new LEGO Jurassic World line and my excitement level is super high right now because, as everyone knows, the only thing better than LEGO and dinosaurs are LEGO DINOSAURS! Let’s sink our teeth into our first look at this new range!

Oh my, this box is tasty. The scaly design in a fetching blue with red accents just makes is a lovely design choice that tickles my fancy in just the right way. I also love the doofy LEGO T-Rex in the corner. Even the reverse depicts the action features of the set with no muss or fuss, as well as detailing what other dinos are available!

Included are two baggies with 174 pieces all together, instructions and stickers. There’s also a little box that contains the two halves of the Pteranodon head, which presumably would protect the printing.

The set includes two minifigures and one dinosaur. On the minifigure front, we have Simon Masrani and an ACU security guard. The ACU is quite generic, with a single panicked expression but the detail on his uniform is really nice and you even get a flak jacket with ACU printed on it and he is armed with a tranq gun. Simon Masrani looks like a dirtbag and that sells his character way before I even read up on the character and found out he’s the unscrupulous owner of Jurassic World who cares more about profit than safety. See? Dirtbag. To sell his character so well with no prior knowledge of the movie shows that the designers really do a great job anthropomorphising these minifigs.

The Pteranodon is made up of five parts and is the same mould as used in the Dino theme from 2012. It looks amazing and it’s proportions make it quite the intimidating creature when scaled with a minifigure. The head portions and wings are made of a sturdy yet malleable rubber for safety reasons while the main body is made with regular plastic. It looks majestic and even a little menacing.

The first 34 steps consist of the core skeleton of the helicopter. It uses many elements that I didn’t think would be used in the finished vehicle. The tail section especially does things that I wouldn’t expect, forming a much more cohesive profile than the pieces would suggest. I wouldn’t expect a standard wheel axle or an upside down sharp piece to make this look good but it does! There’s a single green piece that doesn’t really make sense to me but I’m sure there’s a reason for its inclusion.

In the rest of the build, there’s some more interesting pieces as the action features are introduced. The fold-out gunner platform is a simple hinged door but the folding gun emplacement, using the new stud shooters for extra firepower (and they include extra studs!). The net launcher is interesting purely because the bulk of it is made from a jet turbine. I’d have never thought to use the piece in this manner but it looks pretty slick! I’m also impressed with the rotor blades, looking the sleekest and uniform of any rotor blades I’ve seen on a LEGO helicopter.

Jurassic One is ready to go! The finished vehicle is a bulky little workhouse but it’s such a cohesive little chunk that I can’t help but adore it. I’ve neglected to mention it until now but that blue is so vibrant and I love it! The rotor blades and action features add a ton of playability to this set and I can imagine all the fun a new generation of Jurassic Park fans will have with this new range.

75915 Pteranodon Capture retails for £19.99 and I can endorse picking this set up because of the price point but some people may want to save up for one of the larger sets that includes the main heroes of the film. Keep an eye on the tree-line because we’re not quite done with Jurassic World yet so I’ll catch you guys next time for another Mint in Box!