While watching Manish Saini's The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagman, a fantasy comedy aimed at children, I realized that it's not so different from a typical mainstream movie made for adults. The DNA that Saini's film shares with those movies is remarkably similar: thin characters, a hermetically sealed world, unimaginative visual sophistication, and a handful of good intentions sprinkled here and there to score brownie points with the audience and, sometimes, positive critical reception. The message this superhero adventure carries is "Save Earth." Jagdish (Jackie Shroff) tells Deepu (Mihir Godbole) and his friends that, to become a superhero, they must eat healthy food, plant trees, help others, and care for their parents (of course, the one character, played by Sharat Saxena, who exercises and eats healthy food is shown as pompous). Jagdish himself is praised for caring for his family during turbulent times in the past and for building a house through blood, sweat, and tears. What's more, the backstory involving Jagdish's superhero origin story concludes with him acquiring his powers and then devoting himself to planting and caring for trees with dedication.
The real threat to human beings today is climate change, so it's commendable that we have a film that talks about love and kindness directed toward nature. It's also admirable that the supervillains here are essentially cynics who firmly believe humans must be wholly eradicated to rescue our planet from further destruction. The Great Grand Superhero preaches its message through lines that land like nice-sounding bullet points addressed directly to the audience. It also has some pleasing humor, as when a question-and-answer duel between a teacher and a student is scaled up to mythological proportions. These jokes, coupled with charming performances and tender moments (Jagdish struggling to lift a bucket of water and fighting with a lizard), hit you with a sugar rush. They risk turning you into a party pooper if you attempt to look for flaws. While talking about Jagdish and his powers, Deepu warns his friends that they must not reveal Jagdish's identity to anyone who's 18+, which is just Saini's way of drawing a line separating the wider world from his film's target audience. The wider world would bring in individuals who, through careful consideration, would end up bursting Saini's shallow bubble of good intentions. Hence the demarcation.
For instance, if you actually think about it, the 18+ limit, in the context of the story, doesn't come across as significant. According to the film's rule, if you reveal to an adult that Jagdish is a superhero, Jagdish's powers will disappear. But Jagdish doesn't seem to have any superpowers anyway. He is even unable to run a race or make a short jump. Jagdish mostly behaves like a typical senior citizen. Moreover, before or during the climax, it's never suggested that Jagdish's failure to summon his powers is due to a boy named Chankya (Jihan Jeetendra Hodar), who suspects Jagdish and motivates another kid to reveal the truth about his powers to a family member.
For a movie that's supposed to educate us about the harm humans have done to the Earth, it unfolds in a perfectly green environment with a minimum amount of dirt (a plastic wrapper here, a banana peel there). Even when Jagdish and the bad alien fight and fly through different cities in the process, the movie never stops to locate the pollution and damage inflicted on the streets, waters, and animals in those places. The visuals remain touristy and sanitized. Saini wants to educate children about the horrors humans have inflicted on nature, but the horror itself is never allowed to surface in its terrifying form. It's mentioned only briefly in speeches. The effect is akin to ranting about filth and corruption from the comfort of a spotless, air-conditioned apartment. In The Great Grand Superhero, air pollution and the high cost of railway tickets are mentioned in the news, but they never have any effect on the existence of the characters.
Saini keeps his characters in a warm, fuzzy, cuddly bubble and strips them of personality, dreams, and wider interests. The kids never talk about movies, music, or TV shows (except when such a reference is required to serve the humor, as evidenced by a quick, disposable Shaktimaan reference). They neither discuss what they like to eat nor go through each other's tiffins during lunch hour. They don't play games and don't even cook up fantastical scenarios by borrowing from comic books or other media and placing Jagdish at the center of those hypothetical adventures. The children in The Great Grand Superhero don't dream. They are simply used as cute cartoons meant to be adored with heart-shaped eyeballs.
If Saini had really wanted to make a good children's film, he would have made one about a boy who mythicizes his grandfather to make friends and eventually learns that truth is infinitely preferable to lies because real friendship stands on honesty, not deception. Saini plants these notions into The Great Grand Superhero, but he also severely undermines them by revealing Jagdish to be a real superhero. Deepu's best friend, Ladoo (Shivanssh Chourghe), turns into Jagdish's hardcore follower, unquestioningly accepting Deepu's grand stories about him without raising a single objection. If there is something here about blind followers and their blind devotion to a mere mortal whom they elevate to the status of a god, then Saini remains oblivious to those implications. He doesn't want to go there, which is why Ladoo's devotion doesn't turn out to be wasted. The one kid who does suspect Deepu's story is shaded as a petty villain. He takes advice from his journalist dad (Durgesh Kumar) about how to uncover lies by asking questions, but in front of Jagdish, he's not allowed to ask more than one question. Saini doesn't seem to believe that kids can be wildly inquisitive, probing, curious. He doesn't give them much opportunity to swim in their own thoughts, which is why, when Ladoo's world is shattered after Deepu's confession, all we get is a brief shot of him lying in bed. What does he think? Does he consider leaving Deepu? How does he convince himself to talk to him again and maintain their friendship?
Don't look to Saini for answers because he merely sees characters as hollow puppets. He has little interest in Jagdish's romantic life beyond using it for the requirements of the plot. He also doesn't depict the routine of the aliens, their planet, or their living conditions. Saini doesn't play with the sci-fi aspect like an overimaginative kid who ends up inventing a new language for extraterrestrial creatures. All he provides them are bad costumes and quirky glasses. The movie opens and ends with Ladoo in the company of 18-to 20-year-old teenagers, though it's never explained how he joined this group or befriended them. What's puzzling is that the aliens enter and exit the Earth's atmosphere, yet a gigantic event like this leaves no major trace on the minds of the humans. They accept it as an inconvenience they must survive rather than respond with profound terror or awe. It's similar to how Deepu's parents quickly accept the fact that Jagdish has superpowers. The reason Saini treats these developments as minor notes is probably because he is fulfilling a certain obligation. A character in the movie mentions that people nowadays don't want romance; they crave action. This might be why Saini, after wearing romanticized rose-tinted glasses for most of the runtime, decides to stage a superhero battle for the climax. He wants to give the audience what they want, even though he doesn't seem fully invested in the action sequence.
The aliens-vs.-Jagdish battle is neither scaled for intimacy nor spectacle. Third-rate graphics aside, the scene is devoid of spectacular choreography and heroic wonder. It has a serviceable, workmanlike energy that screams low creative juice and low ambition. I felt sad for the children in the film who were eagerly waiting for this fight, only to be presented with chintzy razzmatazz. I don't know how happy children would feel sitting in the theater. If Saini thinks this is what they really deserve, then it reflects his own contempt for his target audience—and even the audience in general. The Great Grand Superhero is a children's film that disrespects children. Saini, in other words, sees them as a lucrative market for an unexamined, unexceptional product. He doesn't hold children in high regard; he doesn't think they deserve anything better. There is, alas, nothing great or grand about this sci-fi adventure.
Written by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times