The Batman is three hours long – here's the best moment to take a toilet break

Ever sat down to watch a long movie in the cinema, broken into a cold sweat fearing you may need to use the toilet at a crucial moment, and missed one of the greatest big screen scenes of all time?

That time is upon you again – The Batman is almost three hours long ( post-credits and other bits included), and jam packed full of action. When can the weak-bladdered among us safely pop to the toilet, without missing a scene where Batman (Robert Pattinson) beats down on the Penguin (Colin Farrell) or the Piddler Riddler (Paul Dano)? Or does something cool with the Batmobile? Or says “I'm Batman?” – read "I'm Vengeance", in this case – in a cool, gruff, meme-worthy voice?

We’ve seen it, and, as our full The Batman review proves, we loved it. And, armed with that knowledge in our heads, we also know when it’s safe to sneak off to relieve yourself.

No jokes, no riddles, no… penguins? Here’s when to take a break during The Batman.

Mild spoilers follow for The Batman

The Batman – best toilet break opportunities

There are two main opportunities for a break during The Batman – quite nicely spaced out, too – around the 45-minute mark and 1 hour 20 mark. Neither have moments that include key plot points and, although you may miss a very cool car chase scene, you’ll otherwise have a good window of opportunity to relax and relieve for a few minutes before racing back to your seat.

So what are you looking out for? At the 45-minute mark, there’s a scene where Batman gives Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) some high-tech contact lenses and an earpiece as the duo begin to properly investigate the Riddler and his cronies. The scene that immediately follows is essentially some filler on Gotham life, and you won’t miss anything crucial for a few minutes afterwards.

The second moment, about 80 minutes in, is before a big car chase that you’ve seen clips of if you’ve seen The Batman trailer. You'll hear the Penguin (Colin Farrell) call out to his pal Kenzi to 'grab the money' – and that's your cue to dash.

The following scene is cool – it's sublime, in fact, with a stellar highway car chase sequence that sees Batman pursing Oswald Cobblepot in his souped-up Batmobile muscle car. There's tons of great, high-octane action to be had here, so you may wonder why it's a great point to actually nip to the toilet.

Well, it goes on for several minutes, and there's no major plot points involved. Of course, you’re here to see Batman for big action scenes, but this is a lengthy one. It's ridiculously cool to look at, but nothing much happens except for some dangerous driving and explosions. Just make sure you're back in your seat for the scene that follows, as it's pretty amusing and digs deeper into the Riddler's masterplan, the burgeoning work relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), and more.

There’s an app for that?

If needing a toilet break is something that stresses you out regularly when heading to the theater, you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s an app that can help you out for that.

We recommend the RunPee app ( iOS / Android ). Free with some optional in-app purchases (all the content can be unlocked by watching adverts at your leisure), it gives you a run down of when you can head to the nearest stall without the fear of missing anything vitally important. Well, from a plot perspective, anyway. It even has a discreet timer that you can set off at the start of a movie, which will notify you when the perfect toilet-break opportunity is about to present itself.

While you’re wondering if there’s a zipper in the Batsuit, give it a go!

For more content based around The Batman, check out director Matt Reeves' thoughts on how the film honors an iconic horror visionary . And, while you're here, read up on what Colin Farrell says we can expect from his Penguin TV spin-off , which will come to HBO Max soon. Finally, here's where we think The Batman ranks alongside its live-action contemporaries.

This Android tablet has a tiny feature I'd love the iPad Pro or Galaxy Tab to get

I'll admit it: I'm not great with tablet styli. I like to use them (unlike on phones, where I don't see the point), but I've got a terrible habit of losing them. I've lost S Pens, Apple Pencils and more in my day.

Sometimes this is sheer carelessness - I'll put them on a table and absent-mindedly walk away. Other times it's less my fault - I'll put the slate in my bag, and the stylus will get knocked off the magnetic clip, and disappear into the void that is my backpack. Sometimes I'll simply fail to correctly attach the stylus to the magnets and it'll disappear that way.

I've just started testing the Lenovo Tab P12 Pro, a fairly premium tablet from Lenovo, and it's got one tiny feature that made using its stylus far slicker - I think it'll be easier to retain the Precision Pen 3 (as it's called) this way.

A new stylus holder

Most tablets that have compatible styli boast magnetic panels that you use to hook the stick up to the slate, and which double as a magnetic wireless charger. The iPad Pro has one on one edge of the body, and the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has it on the back by the camera bump.

The Lenovo tablet does it a bit differently though - half of the back is magnetic, and the Precision Pen can be attached anywhere here and it'll stick. Sure, it'll only charge in one particular position, but you can slap it on and be reassured that it'll stay there.

As the headline states, this is very much a small feature. It's not going to set the world on fire, and it's not exactly enough to make Apple or Samsung's tablets redundant by any means. But it's a tiny quality-of-life feature that I've found really useful when testing the device.

The slap-test

When I'm seamlessly using a tablet, jumping between note-taking, social media, entertainment and work apps, I find myself picking up and putting down the stylus every few minutes, never giving the thing a moment to rest.

For the Galaxy Tab and iPads, putting the S Pen or Apple Pencil back is sometimes a chore - I need to make sure the stick is perfectly aligned in the correct locking position, which is sometimes a more infuriating task than you'd imagine.

If I get it wrong, the stylus could vanish forever. Not again! That's not the case with the Lenovo Tab - I can carelessly slap the Precision Pen onto the back of the tablet, and rely on it to stick there.

This action is great for my busy workflow, as it can easily become an idiosyncrasy that doesn't break up my concentration. I'm not going to get distracted by the process of simply storing my stylus, but by the next busy task I've got to deal with.

I haven't been using the Lenovo Tab P12 Pro for long enough to really judge the actual stylus experience compared to that of the Apple Pencil or the S Pen (though I've previously been positive about Lenovo slates, like the Yoga Tab 13 ).

But I'm really enjoying this feature so far, and would love other tablet manufacturers to employ something similar.

FIFA 22 is finally getting a feature PS5 and Xbox Series X fans have been crying out for

FIFA 2022 is getting crossplay support, letting you connect with friends in multiplayer matches even if they’re playing on a different platform from the one you’re using.

It will roll out in a testing phase soon, and allow FIFA 2022 players on PS5 , Xbox Series X |S, and Google Stadia to play together in Online Friendlies and Online Seasons. During the test, it won’t be available for PS4 , Xbox One , or PC players.

That’s particularly useful if you want to play with a buddy who stands on the opposite side of the PlayStation-Xbox aisle. PS5 players will soon be able to kick a ball about on the digital pitch with their Xbox friends – and vice-versa – with players’ console preferences no longer preventing them from connecting to their buddies online.

You’ll be able to play one-off friendly matches with players on other platforms, as well as work your way up the Online Seasons Divisions against others who are potentially playing on another console to yourself.

EA says it’s limited this initial crossplay test to Friendlies and Seasons so it can iron out any technical issues that appear. But it expects to roll out the feature to more game modes in the future off the back of community feedback gathered from this test.

Up to now, FIFA games haven’t supported crossplay functionality at all. So fans have been left disappointed that they aren’t able to play the mega sports series with their friends if they happen to own different gaming hardware.

Previous rumors suggested the feature would be coming to FIFA 2023 . It looks like it's landing a little sooner, however, with EA testing the feature with the current FIFA title.

EA hasn’t said when, exactly, we can expect the crossplay test to launch other than “the near future”. We expect the feature will go live for PC players once it’s ready to launch in full, even though they’ve been excluded from this test.

How to play FIFA 2022 crossplay

Crossplay won’t automatically activate when it rolls out the test later this year. To take advantage of the feature, you’ll need to manually opt into the test if you want to participate. Fortunately, it sounds pretty easy to do.

Once the test is live, a crossplay widget will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the game’s main menu. That widget acts as the FIFA 202 crossplay hub, letting you enable or disable the feature, search for friends across platforms, or block players if you don’t fancy playing with them.

To play with friends across platforms, you’ll first need to add them to your FIFA 2022 friends list. Using the same widget, you’ll be able to search for players using their Xbox gamertag, PSN ID, or EA username, and add them as a friend. It’s then just a case of selecting them from your friends list and inviting them to a match.

It’s even easier to play in crossplay Online Seasons. Just enable crossplay, then head into the Online Seasons mode as you normally wood. All the usual matchmaking processes will be sorted behind the scenes, gathering players from across consoles into the tournament. You can just sit back and relax, knowing you might be about to face an opponent playing on a different console.