Rediff has published a sharply critical review of Alpha, calling the YRF spy film a botched up opportunity and framing it as a glossy action exercise that never finds its footing. Sukanya Verma sums it up with the line “Girls just wanna have guns!” but says the film never really lets that idea breathe.
That matters now because Alpha is being watched as a major entry in the YRF spy universe, a franchise that has already trained audiences to expect crowd-pleasing set pieces and star turns. The review points back to those expectations, including Katrina Kaif’s towel-clad fisticuffs in Tiger 3 and Deepika Padukone’s ice skating chase in Pathaan, to argue that the newest film is being measured against a bar the franchise itself set.
Verma’s complaint is not that Alpha lacks movement. It is that the movement feels borrowed. The review says the film leans heavily on Hollywood tropes and templates, with nods to Black Widow, La Femme Nikita, Hanna, Stranger Things and Kung Fu Panda, while super soldier Alia Bhatt takes on an army of commandos in scenes that depend more on empty attitude and endless gunfire than on a character strong enough to carry them.
The cast is part of the problem the review identifies, not the solution. Uday Chopra is credited for the story, and the setup introduces an all-powerful serum in Alia Bhatt’s bloodstream, but the result leaves her character, Sita, underpowered as a larger-than-life daredevil despite the actor’s best efforts. Verma notes that Bhatt has handled intense roles in Raazi, Heart of Stone and Jigra, yet says she still does not have the aura needed here. Sharvari, playing Durga, is introduced like a mistress-of-all-trades, only for her warrior skills to be phased out so the film can linger on Bhatt’s solo scenes.
That is where the promise of the film collides with the critique. Alpha is meant to give the girls their due, yet the review says the women remain dictated by men in power and secondary to the franchise they are supposed to front. Even the presence of Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol as army men is folded into that hierarchy, with the film’s female-led ambition repeatedly pulled back toward familiar power structures.
One of the review’s sharpest details is how routine the film can feel while reaching for spectacle. A schezwan sauce ad placement lands in the middle of a reunion, undercutting any sense of momentum, and the overall effect is less reinvention than repetition. Verma’s conclusion is plain: Alpha wants to be a new kind of spy actioner, but it ends up looking like a glossy rerun of better ideas already spent elsewhere.
For viewers searching for Alpha Movie coverage today, the takeaway is that the film has arrived with the kind of star power and franchise branding that usually drives conversation, only to meet a review that argues the women at its center are still trapped inside somebody else’s playbook. The bigger question now is not whether Alpha can deliver action, but whether it can ever escape the limits the review says it has already imposed on itself.
