''Batkid Begins'' is a 2015 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

co-produced (with Liza Maek), co-written (with Kurt Kuenne) and directed by Dana Nachman. The documentary follows Miles Scott, an American child and cancer survivor. His wish was to be " Batkid", a sidekick of the eponymous

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. ...

superhero

Batman Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in the 27th issue of the comic book '' Detective Comics'' on March 30, 1939 ...

. Once the request went out, thousands of volunteers, city officials, businesses and supporters rallied to turn

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

into "

Gotham City Gotham City ( ), or simply Gotham, is a fictional city appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, best known as the home of the superhero Batman and his allies and foes. Created by writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane, t ...

" – the fictional home city of Batman, on November 15, 2013, for one of the largest and most elaborate Make-A-Wish projects ever staged. The film was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on June 26, 2015.

Cast

* Miles Scott as Batkid / Himself * Eric Johnston as

* Philip Watt as

Riddler The Riddler (Edward Nigma, later Edward Nygma or Edward Nashton) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang, and debuted in ''Detective Comics'' #140 in Oc ...

* Mike Jutan as

Penguin Penguins ( order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapt ...

* Sue Graham Johnston as Damsel in Distress * Joel Zimei as Lou Seal * Or Oppenheimer as

Catwoman Catwoman is a fictional character created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with the superhero Batman. Debuting as "the Cat" in ''Batman'' #1 (spring 1940), she ...

* Ron Oppenheimer as Superman * Nick Scott as Himself * Natalie Scott as Herself * Ryan Scott as Himself * Ed Lee as Mayor of San Francisco * Greg Suhr as Chief of Police * Naomi Kyle as Herself * Patricia Wilson as Executive Director * Chris Taylor as Deputy Editor *

Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living ...

as Himself * Ama Daetz as Newscaster

Release

The film premiered at the

Slamdance Film Festival The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which als ...

on January 24, 2015. On March 12, 2015, Warner Bros. acquired the film. The film was released by Warner Bros. on June 26, 2015.

Reception

''Batkid Begins'' received positive reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film has a rating of 82%, based on 60 reviews, with a rating of 7.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Sweet and unabashedly sentimental, ''Batkid Begins'' is an uplifting look at a selfless act that brought a city together." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 63 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* 2015 films 2015 documentary films American documentary films New Line Cinema films Documentary films about children with disability Documentary films about cancer Documentary films about San Francisco Documentary films about fandom Batman in other media Warner Bros. films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{arts-documentary-film-stub