Sidekicks have fallen out of fashion as superheroes evolve from their original home on comic book pages and into their role as all-consuming pop-cultural empires. Despite their absence from the big screen, many heroes are better with their time-honored allies in tow, or even incomplete without their young ward.
Robin was introduced to the original Batman comics about a year after the Caped Crusader's debut, and he's been a central feature of his narrative ever since. There have been at least five teens to take up the mask and cape, each of which have become full-fledged characters in their own right while serving as Batman's sidekick. There hasn't been a live-action Batman film that featured Robin since 1997.
If there can be any consistency amongst Batman film universes, though they are from different creators and continuities, it's the ongoing march towards a point of maximum dark grittiness. With the exception of a brief period in the 90s, the character has been exposed to one new level of edgy "realism" after another. Tim Burton's fanciful gothic styling gave way to a brief affair with camp, only to be shut down by Nolan's military aesthetics and metaphors about the war on terror. Zack Snyder did what he does to every franchise and brought Superman down with him.
After Zack Snyder filled the franchise with gloomy hyper-masculine shouting and murder, Matt Reeves had a fairly high bar to clear. He succeeded by turning Riddler into the Zodiac killer and Bruce Wayne into a depressed insomniac. This is not to say the films are bad, or that an edgy film is worse than one with some light to it, some of them are excellent. But, this singular focus of tone has been slightly stifling for the franchise, and it has excised some of the best parts of the source material.
It's no coincidence that the brief period of comic book camp was also the last time Robin made it to the big screen. Batman & Robin was something of a turning point for the franchise because the fan backlash was so intense that it motivated the studio to take their character in more "adult" directions. The problem is, Robin isn't just a silly side-character to provide comic relief or a second pair of fists to keep action scenes interesting. Robin is a key part of the Batman mythos, a beloved protagonist of most of his best stories, and a crucial aspect of Bruce Wayne's journey as a man and as a hero. And there is perhaps no Batman that needs a sidekick more than the one Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson brought to the big screen this year.
Pattinson's Batman is not the carefree billionaire playboy of some modern incarnations, nor the unstoppable confident world-saver of others. He's relatively new at the masked vigilante gig, and his life as Bruce Wayne is racked with psychological difficulties. He's a character who has immense struggles and an inconceivable amount to learn. Bruce Wayne is capable of a great deal, but he's also buried in human fragility in a way that is rare for any fictional character, let alone a superhero. The addition of a sidekick would give this iteration of Batman the two things he needs most; someone he can depend on, and someone who depends upon him.
Dick Grayson was a young acrobat whose parents were murdered by a gang boss when he was 8. Batman took it upon himself to investigate the murder and Dick made an effort to join him. Batman takes the kid under his protective custody as a young ward and sets to work training him as a sidekick. The Bruce Wayne of The Batman is not done learning how to balance his two lives, but he's doing a decent job of vigilante justice. An even younger person, suffering in much the same way he suffered, would be the perfect new element of his life. Bruce gets to teach a younger version of himself all the lessons he had to learn the hard way and learn from Robin's experience all the ways he's gone wrong.
Robin can be the emotional core of a Batman story, the up-and-coming hero who grows while encouraging growth in Bruce. A Batman and Robin story for the new age would be clever, surprising, satisfying, and perfectly in keeping with the themes and tone of The Batman. This take on Bruce Wayne needs someone to care about and someone who cares about him. If this series manages to continue, which is likely given its tremendous success, Robin would be a perfect new direction for the film.
Reeves and Pattinson have remarked that Robin would be a good addition to the film franchise, with the stipulation that he needs to be an appropriate age. The teen sidekick should make a comeback, and this is the perfect film for it to liven up.