Five-years-old Miles, from Tule Lake, Calif., is dressed in a Batman costume in San Francisco, Friday, November 14, 2014. Miles, who wants to be a Batman, will embark on a series of crime-solving adventures when San Francisco is converted into “Gotham City” as part of a Make-A-Wish Foundation event. He is in a fight on his own in his battle against leukemia since he was a year old. He is now in remission. (Photo: Make-A-Wish Foundation/PaulSakuma.com)

November 15, 2013 has to rank up there with the day the Allies liberated Paris and Neil Armstrong’s 1969 walk on the moon as one of the happiest days in modern human history.
That was Batkid Day, when San Francisco became Gotham City, and when billions across the world were touched by an outpouring of support and affection for good sick little boy.
“Batkid Begins” is an uplifting documentary about that day. Five year-old Miles Scott of Tulelake, California, had the wish of his short lifetime come true as a mayor, a president, police, actors, costumers and special effects professionals and even Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer turned him loose on Gotham’s criminal classes. Tens of thousands gathered in enormous flash mobs to cheer him on, many having flown in from all over the world to witness it. And billions followed his exploits and turned social media into the greatest love-in in recorded history.
Filmmakers Dana Nachman and Kurt Kuenne had inside access to that day, and followed up with interviews with scores of those involved, taking a sad story — the day the Miles’ family learned he had leukemia — and following it through to the day itself, riding along with a child and a Batman riding through San Francisco in black Lamborghinis, foiling The Riddler and The Penguin and saving the day.
Grown men wept, but grown women — mostly from the Make a Wish Foundation — made this epic feel-good event come to pass.
San Francisco Make a Wish chief Patricia Wilson describes what her organization does as “whimsical.” They give a worthy child “a little of their childhood back” a childhood lost to a struggle with a deadly illness. But this wish went beyond whimsy, touching millions and blowing up into something that transcended its own excess. The rest of the world might have been shaking its collective heads at our distraction, at the lengths we go to in indulging one child. But they had to be a bit awed by it, as well, maybe even moved.
Eric Johnston is a hero of the piece, a one-time stuntman who gave up months to plan stunts, adapt a gadget, secure a costume and play Batman to Scott’s Batkid, keeping young Miles entertained and on-task on his big day. Everyone from Apple executives and online-marketing experts, to the police chief and every motorcycle cop in city (“I don’t need overtime. I’m still coming.”) jumped on board.
And no one — save perhaps for media people straining to cover this hot trending topic — lost sight of the bigger mission, to feed a child’s fantasy, if only for a day.
You can try to resist the emotions and charms of “Batkid Begins,” but 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.

MPAA Rating: PG for some mild thematic material

Cast: Eric Johnston, Miles Scott, Patricia Wilson, Hans Zimmer
Credits: Directed by Dana Nachman, script by Kurt Kuenne and Dana Nachman . A Warner Brothers/New Line release.

Running time: 1:27