Batkid Begins

It’s a great story. Miles Scott, a Northern California boy diagnosed with leukemia at 18 months, had grown up loving superheroes—specifically, Batman—so his parents appealed to the Make-A-Wish Foundation about the possibility of him getting a day where he could be the Caped Crusader. On November 15, 2013, the organization pulled off a highly choreographed coup, surprising Miles (who was then five) during a trip to San Francisco in which the city was remade to become his own personal Gotham City, the city’s officials pitching in so that he could dress as Batman and fight a fictional Riddler and Penguin. Miles, whose cancer has gone into remission, didn’t just get his wish but, in the process, also became an unlikely social-media sensation, inspiring plenty of people online with his story—including President Obama, who sent the boy a personalized Vine message.
That great story has been turned into a documentary that recognizes the newsworthiness of its subject but isn’t nearly curious or sharp enough to do much with it. So-so at generating feel-good sentiment, Batkid Begins takes us into the preparations that went into that massive undertaking back in 2013. But by settling merely for tear-jerking and sweet, director Dana Nachman ends up turning a magical, once-in-a-lifetime experience into just another commodity, a drab celebration of the people who put together that day rather than a look at all the cultural and psychological factors that made it so unique—to say nothing of the little boy at the center of the phenomenon.
In Batkid Begins, Nachman compiles footage shot by Make-A-Wish and others from that day, and she interviews plenty of those involved—including the boy’s parents and Patricia Wilson, the executive director of Make-A-Wish’s Greater Bay Area chapter who spearheaded the operation. These people are unquestionably terrific, loving individuals, each just wanting to give Miles his dream of a day as Batman. We learn how Wilson reached out to friends, eventually casting (among others) inventor Eric “EJ” Johnston to play Batman and software engineer Mike Jutan to play the Penguin. In addition, Batkid Begins details the logistics needed to turn large swaths of San Francisco into a fantasyland for Miles, requiring elaborate coordination between the mayor’s office and local police. If all that wasn’t enough, there were also costumes to be made, practical effects to be dreamed up, and a script for Miles (as Batkid) to follow that had to be written.
Anyone who followed these events in 2013—both the preparations and their execution on November 15—will remember how the boy’s wish took on a life of its own, with people flooding into the city to be part of the event or to offer encouragement to Miles through Twitter and elsewhere. What made the story so remarkable is that it felt so spontaneous, creating one of those rare cultural moments in which an orchestrated event taps into something ineffable and emotional in the public consciousness. A young boy cruelly stricken with a serious disease just wanted to be Batman—and a whole lot of people, moved by his circumstance, wanted to cheer him on and see it for themselves.