Super Heroes Marvel

I Am Groot

A sculpture that nails the character and wobbles a bit doing it.

Brick Rated Score

3.8/5

Set 76217 · 2022

Pieces476

Minifigsn/a

Year2022

Set number76217

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The verdict

I built this one expecting a toy and ended up with a sculpture, and that's really what this set is.

The head is the reason to buy it, the woodgrain texture LEGO pulled off with ordinary bricks is genuinely clever, and the cassette tape prop is a sweet little bonus build. Where it loses me a little is the body. Baby Groot is top heavy and the ball joints holding him up start to sag the moment you try to pose him in anything but the default stance. Get this one to display, not to fidget with.

Best for: Marvel fans and shelf-display collectors who want a standout centerpiece, not a poseable action figure

The full review

What it is

I Am Groot is one of those LEGO sets that's really a sculpture wearing a set number. You're not building a spaceship or a building, you're building a character, and the head is where the design team clearly spent their energy. The layered, woodgrain texture across his face and the way his eyes catch the light are the kind of detail that makes you stop and actually look at a finished LEGO model instead of just moving on to the next one. He comes with a fully brick built cassette tape, styled after Peter Quill's Awesome Mix, that fits neatly into his hands, complete with reels made from tiny tyres behind trans clear windows. It's a lovely little side build tucked into a bigger one.

The catch

Here's the honest part. Once you get past the head, the rest of the build is fairly ordinary, and the articulation that's supposed to make Groot posable doesn't fully deliver. He's top heavy, and the ball and socket joints in his hips and legs aren't rigid enough to support that weight for long. Stand him on one leg or angle his arms into anything dramatic and you'll find him slowly sagging back to his default pose within a day or two. At 476 pieces for around $55 US retail, it's also priced more like a display piece than a play set, since there's no minifig here to sweeten the part count.

Who it's for

If you're after a Marvel shelf piece that photographs beautifully and captures Baby Groot's proportions perfectly, this earns its spot. If you want a character build you can actually re-pose and enjoy handling regularly, temper your expectations, because the engineering under that adorable face is more fragile than it looks.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build itself moves in two very different gears. The head section is the highlight, a slow, layered construction that stacks small textured pieces at odd angles to fake natural woodgrain, and it's genuinely satisfying to watch a face emerge from what looks like a jumble of brown parts. The body and legs go together fast and feel more like standard Technic-braced LEGO framework, functional but not especially memorable, and the final model does feel more delicate the closer you get to finishing it.

There's no rare new mold headlining this one, the appeal is in how ordinary elements get repurposed. Tyres become cassette tape reels behind trans-clear panels, small brown and tan curved pieces build up bark-like texture across the arms and head, and the sticker sheet supplies both Awesome Mix Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 labels so you can choose which cassette story you want to display. At under 500 pieces, the part count itself is modest, and the value here is really about clever texture work rather than raw brick quantity.

Fun facts

01The finished figure stands about 26cm (10 inches) tall, matching Baby Groot's exact on screen scale from the Marvel films
02The included cassette tape has two interchangeable stickers so it can represent either Awesome Mix Vol. 1 or Vol. 2 from Guardians of the Galaxy
03The set retailed for $54.99 / £44.99 / 49.99 euros and was officially retired in December 2024 after a shelf life of about two and a half years
04Reviewers consistently flagged the same weak point, top heavy ball joints in the legs and hips that struggle to hold dynamic poses over time