In mid-July I got tickets to go to the Depot Mayfield in Manchester for the Batman Unmasked exhibition. The opportunity to “Explore a never-before-seen collection of original props, vehicles, and costumes.” was something I couldn’t pass up, especially with my love for all things Dark Knight related. It was to be part of the 85th anniversary celebrations since the Caped Crusader first appeared in Detective Comics.
It wasn’t long ago that I had been here for my session with the Leica Store Manchester’s Stuart Rayson. and I found my way from the park and ride at East Didsbury, onto the tram and into the city centre. I popped by Camera Crib to pick up some 35mm film but they were closed for some reason, so I had a bit of time to wander the streets of Manchester making images of the locals and shoppers from further afield.
As I got closer, there were signs showing me the way to go, some were smeary paint, some took me past a skate park that was populated with little kids on boards and scooters today. as my entry time got closer I got closer t the entry point, then realising that I’d walked a long way around instead of just going a logical way, but as it was I’d made use of the minutes.
Disappointing Entrance
Going into the exhibition it was a bit underwhelming, a big old abandoned warehouse with a couple of signs and then a queue, albeit empty, that offered no real excitement. The only atmospheric part was that the building had some funky lighting, and a projected bat signal on the wall.
Waiting a couple more minutes I got my cameras set up for the incoming opportunities and I had taken with me my Leica Q3 and the new-to-me Leica M6 with some Ilford 400 HP5Plus inside it.
The queue built up to about 12 people before the doors were opened and we were allowed into a library style room, dressed as if in Wayne Manor. There was a desk with the Bat Phone on it, along with a few pictures on the walls, including a large bookcase on the one wall.
The guide started his spiel on health and safety and no touchy touchy, before a video message from Jim Lee, the Current chairman of DC, played on the wall. The Bat Phone rang and the guide answered it as though he was chatting to Jim Gordon and tried to get the relatively quiet group involved in a puzzle to open the secret bookcase.
First Room
Once the doors opened we were immediately face to face with a room centred around the motorbike used by Batman in the latest movie, The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson. It was a good piece of engineering and presented really nicely up on a stand so that you could walk all the way around it taking in all of the fine details. In the same room was a vitrine showing some of the weapons and gadgets the different iterations of the Caped Crusader have made use of, from the 1989 Tim Burton movie, Batman, all the way up to the most recent. Grapnel or Grapple guns from the 89 movie and Justice League movie were alongside the “you are el rata alada” note from Paul Dano’s Riddler. It’s written in a few places that the articles on display are all original and screen used, there are no replicas or substitutes.
In this room was also a costume that Pattinson wore in the start of the movie, when he was walking through the crowds on the night of Halloween, just a regular hoody, baseball cap and outer clothes that no doubt would have helped him blend into the madness. This is behind glass in a case so it’s difficult to get photos of it, owing to it being so dark behind me and an odd reflection or two of bright displays. It was a challenge but I managed a couple of photos.
With the corner of the room having a podium to stand on for photos I moved on to the next room as this isn’t really my scene. Upon entering the next room, there was a wall of cowls. Batman’s famous masks from each of the men that have donned the costume since ’89. Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, Affleck, Pattinson and even a Lego Batman cowl which would have been inhabited by Will Arnett if his head had been of a smaller scale.
Also in here were full costumes from Keaton, Bale and Pattinson’s Batmen stints. The Keaton version was an updated version for the Flash movie but retained many of the features including the chest symbol from Returns. The Bale version from Begins, does show the “Nomex Survival Suit” underneath it, as Lucius Fox announces inthe movie and then on another wall is the suit from RPATTS’ movie. Whilst this looks a bit janky it fits in well with a home developed suit of lightweight armour and appears to be reminiscent of the suit from Gotham by Gaslight graphic novel from 1989, with the raised neck guard around the base of the skull.
The suits and cowls are all amazing to see up close, and the provenance of them cannot be questioned, even down to the Batman vs Superman Dawn Of Justice suit where Batfleck has some of his helmet smashed off by Kal-El of Krypton. This is a callback to the mech-suit worn by an elderly Wayne in Frank Miller’s graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns from 1986 and on screen it looks believable but here it looks like foam or 3D Printed plastic.
The fact that each of them are in plastic/glass cases causes me issues for photographing them for my posterity but I do it anyway.
In the centre of the room is a cabinet of Batman’s Utility Belts. with a collection of most of the belts from the post ’89 movies. Again it’s easy to see how cheap they look in person and impressive that they look so good on film. In the vitrine by this cabinet they also have some more weapons, such as the small bat bombs and batarangs from Batman Begins as well as the GothCard Credit card used by Clooney in Batman & Robin from 1997. Such a ghastly and preposterous scene in an even more ghastly movie. Can you tell I’m not a huge fan of this iteration?
Now The Maze
Moving through to the next room, when allowed by a digital timer, we enter a white room with a single hospital style bed in the centre, a small night stand with light sat atop it and a number of playing cards spread all over the bed. The curtain closes behind the last visitor and then the sound starts, a voice talking gibberish, supposed to be the Joker talking about his philosophy of life and the lights start flashing and changing colours.
Not a very successful imagining in my opinion and when the lights changed to UV/blacklight, revealed on the walls were lots of scribbles “HA HA” etc. Again, I wasn’t entirely surprised by this and felt it to be a little clumsy and an easy way to fill a room with very little. I stayed in for the duration but didn’t get a lot from it, then stayed for the next repeat in the room too, to make sure I hadn’t missed something. I hadn’t.
The next section was a room with false ivy hanging from the false ceiling frame, it was painted in fluro paints that glowed in the black light and you had to walk around the mirror walled room trying to get out into the next zone. Again, this felt a bit empty and filling space/time until you get to a good bit. I found it to be jarring and it took me out of the mood for the exhibition. Even though it was Poison Ivy based theme I never really got that from it.
Once through here it was time for a Riddler themed laser maze. Well it was a couple of dark painted walls with holes in that lasers shone through and reflected from mirrors around the room. Slightly more interesting than the Poison Ivy room but still marginal, not really enjoyable. I was a bit worried about laser beams damaging both my eyes and my sensor in the camera. They were probably super harmless and of no danger to anyone but felt a bit non-plussed again. It was a room that you just walked through. If it had been a game and an alarm sounded when you cut a beam then it would be more interesting but there was no consequence. It all began to feel like padding out the experience to make you feel like the money was worth it.
The next room is bound to be more props and costumes or even a Batmobile right? Wrong. It was a room full of mirrors and led light sticks to slightly disorientate you as you walk through. Again, it was a disappointment, not sure it was a great experience but looking at the map of the experience on the website, it appears that these rooms make up the Arkham Maze.
My main issue with these rooms is that there was no ceiling on them, just above the wall height was a big open chasm of the old warehouse building, any sense of being trapped in a madhouse was lost by simply looking at the open area.
The Good Stuff Returns
After making my way through here it was into the next room which miraculously contained the “Rogues Gallery” and some real costumes and props from the movies. First thing to grab my attention was Heath Ledger’s nurse outfit from The Dark Knight, What an article to see, this is what I was in there to look at not some painted plastic ivy. Next to this display case was another shorter version with a single item inside, a mask. The same mask worn by Ledger in the heist section of the movie. “Now I know why they call him the Joker” said the driver of the car on the way to the bank.
Opposite, stood the Riddler suit from Batman Forever, complete with a mannequin based up on Jim Carrey. The felt suit and hat covered in question marks was arresting at the time of the release of the movie, and whilst Carrey is a bit over-the-top I think his Riddler was a good cross between Frank Gorshin from the 60’s show and the later more menacing versions from films, series, games, and books.
Bane’s mask from The Dark Knight Rises was also here and whilst I do not particularly like the movie, the weakest of the three for me, I think the mask is a cool design. If only we could have heard Tom Hardy’s dialogue a little more clearly…
In the vitrine here were some props from the latest film The Batman by Matt Reeves, including some of the cards sent by the Riddler to Batman. Interesting also to see them close up and realise that these are likely one offs, after some looking at the frames in the movie it does appear that they do look exactly the same. Even the fireproof envelope that was damaged in a fire, it has the same weathering and damage as per the movie scene. There is no reason to suspect that these exhibitions might be lying about the props but I’m a little cynical about being ripped off. I think this comes from, and I realise this is nuts to be concerned about, that the space shuttle Enterprise on board the USS Intrepid in New York never actually went to space. It was launched off a Boeing 747 to prove that this design could be glided into the runway, see I told you it’s nuts that this annoys me..
Other props related to the villains, Joker’s pencil in TDK, Riddler’s mask from The Batman, Riddler’s cane from Forever and a whole load more. It was interesting to see Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Polar Bear slippers were built around a pair of Vans trainers too.
Other mannequins in here were Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy costume, Joaquin Phoenix’s suit from Joker, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn costume and Arnold’s Mr Freeze suit. All marvellous to see up close, but again made difficult to capture on a camera due to the glass case.. I do understand why they have to enclose the items though or someone would be nicking Harley’s shorts etc.
Moving out of this room after another couple of groups had been and gone, it was time to go into room 7, the Vehicle Bunker. In the room was a Batmobile. The Tumbler from Batman Begins, as driven by Christian Bale’s Batman. It looked like I would imagine, big bruising and like a military vehicle. Almost a cross between a Humvee and a Lamborghini Murcielago, painted in black, it looked awesome. I spent ages walking around taking photos with my digital and film cameras. I wanted to look at the details of the engineering and it’s funny that once you are up close, it does appear to look fake. The angles on it are supposed to not be 90 degree angles like the stealth fighters/bombers but there were enough bits of it that would have made this stand out easily. The detailing of it looked cool but at the end of the day you could tell it was a movie prop, made to look better by dynamic cameras and dark conditions on the movie set.
This is my third favourite Batmobile after the ’89 vehicle, and then the Batman Animated Series ‘mobile. The new Batmobile from the Matt Reeves film is also up there, it;s a muscle car with modifications to make it sturdy and fast rather than gadgets that are no use to anyone. This car wasn’t here though, although as I write this I’ve come back from a day in London and the Batman Unmasked exhibition is currently in Covent Garden and they don’t have the Tumbler there, they have the Reeves Batmobile from 2022. Shame I didn’t get to see it but hey.
The last room before the merch shop is the Interactive Space where you can read some comics, play a Batman Scalextric and have your photo taken scaling a wall as in the 60’s TV show. It was a bit of a weak finish for me, but I bet little kids would enjoy it immensely. Just not for me.
Into the shop and the hoodies were nearly £60 so I passed on those, only buying a keyring and some stickers. After this it was time to head back out into the streets of Manchester and make my way over to Salford Quays for a visit to the Imperial War Museum and the Lowry.
This Means War
A 25 minute tram ride on the Bee network saw me arrive at the IWM North with pletny of time. The buildings housing the exhibits is an interesting design and was the first thing I noticed from across the other side of the docks when in Media City UK a month or two before.
After taking a few photos of the externals it was time to go in, and there was plenty to capture on the sensor of the Q3 and the 35mm film in the M6. I watched a film on “the Troubles” in Ireland and as I was watching this i noticed a poster behind the fenced in area and as people would walk past it was silhouetting them nicely.
Vehicles in the museum consisted of a Tank, a Trabant car, a Harrier Jump Jet, a couple of motorbikes. There were many cabinets built into the walls of the museum space all containing many artefacts from the conflicts around the world.
There were many video installations too and I was invited to hang in an area as they would fill the walls with video at a particular time, including footage from Peter Jackson’s colourised film from WW1..
The guide also explained to me that the floor in one end of the museum is far higher than the opposite end, and walking on a gradient is meant to unsettle the gallery goers.
It was a museum containing some emotional content, including the poppies from the Tower Of London, but I found it to be not on the same scale as the IWM in London. It was ok but I don’t think I would recommend this site over the London version.
Make Art Not War
Once complete in here it was time to head over to the Lowry gallery to look at some artworks. Only when I got there it appeared that the doors were all locked, there was no way in. Only then did I see the sign saying it was open every day except Monday. Doh. Into the shopping centre to grab a snack and a drink before getting back on the tram to the city centre once more.
A walk around Picadilly Gardens and the main shopping streets helped me capture a few images of pedestrians doing some pedestrianing and then it was time for the tram back to East Didsbury and a 2 hour drive back in the car.
Summary
You know those news stories when hundreds of gullible people were taken in by a rubbish Charlie and The Chocolate Factory or Snowy Christmas experience? That is what the Batman Unmasked Exhibition felt like to me. There was just enough good stuff in there to prevent me from lodging a complaint and asking for money back, but on the whole I felt like it was. a bit lazy.
Maybe it’s because of my recent (January) experience fo TeamLab Planet in Tokyo that has ruined this sort of exhibit for me. It was the same going back to Alton Towers after Universal and Disney parks in Florida. It all feels a bit half arsed, a bit too budget constrained.
I did enjoy seeing the props and costumes as well as the vehicles though, and feel very lucky to have seen these. I bet they will soon go into a studio collection to be held in WB head office over in the US after they’ve been through the UK.
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