Alpha Review: Alia Bhatt Can't Save This YRF Spy Universe Film

Alpha Review: A Franchise Running on Style, Running Out of Substance

Rating: 1.5/5

The YRF Spy Universe was once Bollywood's most dependable action franchise. Beginning with Ek Tha Tiger in 2012, it consistently delivered blockbuster entertainers with Tiger Zinda Hai, War, and Pathaan. However, the cracks became evident with Tiger 3, and War 2 only deepened the crisis. With Alpha—the franchise's first female-led spy film starring Alia Bhatt and Sharvari—Yash Raj Films desperately needed a course correction.

Instead, Alpha emerges as yet another creatively bankrupt installment that pushes the franchise even closer to irrelevance.

Story

Twin sisters Sita (Alia Bhatt) and Durga (Sharvari) are separated immediately after birth following a tragic incident. Their father (Anil Kapoor) is led to believe that one of his daughters has died. Years later, their lives intersect with a mysterious project called the Alpha Serum—a military experiment coveted by the ruthless Fateh Singh Lakhawat (Bobby Deol).

What is the Alpha Serum? Why is it so valuable? Who is Fateh Singh Lakhawat really? And how are the separated sisters connected to this conspiracy? The film attempts to answer these questions through an espionage backdrop mixed with family melodrama.

Performances

If there's one reason the film remains watchable for brief stretches, it's Alia Bhatt. She brings sincerity to a character trapped inside a hopelessly weak screenplay. Whether it's emotional scenes or action blocks, she delivers with conviction and carries the film as much as possible.

Sharvari looks confident in the action sequences and shows gradual improvement as a performer, but the screenplay gives her little room to leave a lasting impression.

The biggest disappointment comes from the supporting cast. Actors of the calibre of Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Dibyendu Bhattacharya appear strangely disconnected, almost as if they are sleepwalking through their roles. None of the characters receive meaningful development, making their performances largely forgettable.

Technical Aspects

The film's biggest failure lies at the writing stage.

No amount of glossy cinematography, lavish production design or expensive action choreography can rescue a screenplay that simply refuses to engage. Scene after scene unfolds without tension, surprise or emotional payoff. The direction never injects urgency into the narrative, resulting in a sluggish two-and-a-half-hour experience.

The music barely registers, while the background score struggles to elevate even potentially exciting moments. The action is polished but repetitive, lacking the inventiveness expected from a franchise of this scale.

What Works

Alia Bhatt's committed performance

A few well-mounted action sequences

What Doesn't

Formulaic and predictable story

Weak screenplay

Lifeless direction

Emotionally hollow characters

Forgettable music

Underwhelming performances from the supporting cast

A poorly conceived Hrithik Roshan cameo

Zero suspense despite being a spy thriller

Analysis

The biggest problem with Alpha is that it forgets what made spy thrillers exciting in the first place.

Rather than delivering a gripping espionage drama, the film spends most of its runtime exploring a routine family conflict involving a father and his estranged daughters. The spy angle merely functions as decorative packaging. Strip away the intelligence agencies, secret missions and terrorists, and what remains is an ordinary family drama that has been recycled countless times.

The film mistakes style for storytelling.

Designer costumes, foreign locations, glamorous slow-motion entries, elaborate action set-pieces and glossy visuals are thrown together in the hope that spectacle alone can compensate for the absence of substance. Unfortunately, audiences have moved beyond this formula. Today's viewers expect intelligent writing alongside scale, something Alpha consistently fails to provide.

The screenplay is filled with astonishingly illogical moments. One sequence perfectly illustrates the film's confused writing. After effortlessly eliminating multiple attackers, the R&AW chief sends his daughters to a supposedly safe location—not through military evacuation or helicopter support—but on motorcycles. Their journey somehow stretches over three days, involving biking, mountain climbing, swimming and endless detours, despite the resources available to India's premier intelligence agency. The sequence exists solely to manufacture action and glamour rather than serve the story.

The much-publicised Hrithik Roshan cameo turns out to be another major disappointment. Instead of creating excitement or expanding the Spy Universe, it feels mechanically inserted and poorly executed. Rather than elevating the film, it becomes another reminder of how unimaginative the writing has become.

What makes the experience even more frustrating is the complete absence of a single standout sequence. A film running close to 140 minutes fails to produce even one genuinely thrilling moment. That's an alarming achievement for a franchise built entirely on high-stakes action and espionage.

Final Verdict

Alpha isn't merely a weak film—it represents a worrying creative decline for the YRF Spy Universe. With Tiger 3, War 2 and now Alpha, the franchise has delivered three consecutive disappointments, severely damaging a brand that once dominated Bollywood action cinema.

The message for Yash Raj Films is becoming impossible to ignore: expensive production values cannot replace compelling writing. Unless the studio reinvents the franchise with fresh ideas and stronger screenplays, the Spy Universe risks becoming a victim of its own formula.

For audiences, the recommendation is simple. Skip this mission.

Bottom Line: The final nail in the coffin for the YRF Spy Universe — unless a complete creative reboot arrives soon.