Batkid Begins
Warner Bros. | Release Date: June 26, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
89
TheWrapTim AppeloJun 25, 2015
The editing is ruthlessly efficient, and some of the talking-heads scenes are dramatized via lively comic-book renditions that lend visual panache. All the characters grab you, not just the kid. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 26, 2015
This winning film wins you over without manipulation, without guile and without ulterior motives. If you can’t feel good about humanity after this one, you can’t feel good. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 25, 2015
The film is a fascinating look at how a true event can become a media event — and how courting the media can have good and bad results so mixed up that it’s hard to know where the good influence stops and the corrupting influence starts. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKeith UhlichJun 24, 2015
Miles treats this whole experience with an affectingly genuine innocence—something that the filmmakers, and many of the participants, seem to think can be bottled and sold as a soul-cleansing palliative. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 23, 2015
Batkid Begins is a good movie about great intentions and a large group of people coming together to make a stranger most of them will never meet happy. Read full review
70
The DissolveTasha RobinsonJun 25, 2015
Batkid’s story is fun in part because it’s so joyously frivolous. He’s cute because he’s a tiny version of a big thing. Trying to blow him up into something bigger than he is spoils some of what makes him special. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 9, 2015
Batkid would be easier to swallow if it focused less on self-congratulation than on the epidemic of unselfishness that inspired the magic in the first place. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comNick AllenJun 26, 2015
Batkid Begins brims with subjects who come in with their own enthusiasm, color, and comedy. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenJun 25, 2015
As to truly exploring the phenomenon of a live-tweeted collective fiction, the documentary makes a couple of intriguing observations but doesn't look far beyond the metrics, content to exult in the wow factor of it all, which admittedly is considerable. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJun 25, 2015
Marveling without questioning, the movie is content to package the phenomenon and coast on its feel-good wave. Yet, somewhere around the midpoint, I began to wonder who was most thrilled by all this fuss. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonJun 25, 2015
Batkid Begins wants audiences to celebrate the everyday heroes who donated their time and energy to Miles's dream. Absolutely, we should. Still, take a minute to ask what the disproportionate investment and interest in Batkid's adventure says about our own maturity — and how the internet allows us to feel like champions for rallying for one afternoon, while overlooking the years of unglamorous doctor appointments before it. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 9, 2015
The deeper we go into Dana Nachman’s unquestioning, feature-length cheerleading film, the more uncomfortable I felt about the reaction of one person to that magical and overwhelming day. Miles. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianJun 22, 2015
Any hope of meaningful reflection or insight is doused by a steady drip of often redundant and banal observations. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJordan HoffmanJun 25, 2015
Scott’s story is inspiring, as is the way everyone pitches in, from the police to the San Francisco Giants to Hollywood special effects geniuses to President Obama. But as a movie, this is like watching an expanded local news segment. Read full review
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