After watching Endgame I could not help but feel that the whole Avengers series is Hollywood’s answer to 1990’s Govinda Films!
Tacky clothes, deliberate gimmicks bordering on slapstick comedy, massy entertainment, jokes and scenes you enjoy in the moment. And like the Govinda films, I am sure a couple of decades later we are all going to pause and reflect on ourselves, engaging to answer a deep psychological question, Why did we enjoy these films?
At least the saving grace of Govinda films is the fact that they are not pretentious, they do not try to intellectualise, nor do they try to create an overarching narrative.
Avengers on the other hand claim intellectual high ground. In fact they are not ‘trying’ to create the arc but they claim they have an ‘arc’. As if the audience entering Infinity war were exposed to the power of the memory stone, encapsulated by a ray coming from the three dimensional screen, rendering the memory of the first two Thor movies obsolete. Thor trying to be Dark Knight cum Superman, that too without Nolan in the chair. The whole thing was painful, painful for Thor, painful for the audience.
I hope everyone has learnt the lesson that only Nolan can go dark with superheroes, then maybe not, I heard they are trying for a ‘dark universe’ now !
Back to Endgame, it was not really a game nor it was the end. It is a game only when the opposite side knows that they are in a game, Thanos is unaware about the game till almost the end. Ending wise I still feel Infinity war is the better movie, as it has one key element of story telling – Resolution. The ending is tragic, yet satisfactory. Endgame does not have an ending. Infinity war managed a coherence because it did not try to include everyone and everyone’s arc. Endgame ambitiously sets out to accommodate everyone and also provide closure to everyone’s story and thus meanders into some really cringe moments.
And those ‘keeda’s’ , colloquially called as geeks, should stay away from proclaiming that the movie has ‘Logical Consistency’. Govinda’s films have more logic and consistency. All geeks answer one question, When Thanos snapped his fingers how many Captain America’s were alive and how many of them got destroyed by the snap. Also what exactly did Iron Man figure out in rectifying the idea from Ant Man other than say ‘I have figured it out’.
Thematically Avengers seem polished, like the clothes they wear. Custom stitched for each of the Avengers with a rather rainbow palette. Just like we have different colours for different football teams, the Avengers need different colours just to distinguish themselves. Still in terms of clothes Govinda should get 10x the platitudes of the Avengers. Superhero characters can get away with a gamut of colours on them, however It takes a soul evolved at a different level to carry off the same gamut despite of being cast as a normal clerk. Like a yellow shirt and pant attire, with a fitting more in the category of elder brother passing off old oversized clothes to the younger sibling. Jugaad it, roll up the oversize sleeves, instead of sewing missing buttons, carry an unbuttoned look, and then own it up as ‘Style’. And to pull it off without any body transformation video, Govinda is truly an icon!
Talking about icons and coming to the iconic ‘snap’ of Thanos, now wildly popular in western and westernised culture, a reality check here guys. That coming together of the fingers for the ‘snap’, however popular it might become, it will not achieve the status, nor the gravitas of the coming together of fingers ‘Chutki’ in Hindi Cinema. Yes that ‘ek Chutki of Sindoor’. Avengers is basically Govinda with a budget!
Yet after all this ranting, I still cannot deny the fact that I enjoyed the movie!
because I also enjoyed the Govinda movies in the 1990’s and I still enjoy some of them even now!
They basically tick all boxes, great 3D experience, slapstick jokes, don’t bore you with details, thrill, action Plus when you are watching it in a packed theatre : Paisa Wasool. Its like that 4 O’clock tea at your katta, you know what you are going to get, nothing new, nothing surprising, yet you want it, you long for it. Let’s not waste our time in postulating who died and who came back, who we will see in the upcoming movies. These are creative (commercial) decisions solely based on inner (commercial) values of the writers and the sensibilities (contracts) of the actors. Let’s just sip on that garam chai without bothering how much milk it has.
Just Enjoy an iconic song !
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