Alpha review from UAE: Alia Bhatt, Sharvari shine in a glossy but timid spy thriller

Dubai: There's something strangely difficult about reviewing Alpha. Not because it's a complicated film, but because you genuinely want it to succeed.

Here is Bollywood attempting something that should have happened a long time ago: putting two women at the centre of a sprawling action franchise, a space usually reserved for larger-than-life heroes and swaggering spies.

Watching Alia Bhatt and Sharvari throw punches instead of waiting to be rescued feels like progress. You instinctively want to applaud that.

The trouble is, admiration for what a film represents can only carry you so far. Eventually, you're left judging what's actually on screen. And that's where Alpha begins to lose its grip.

The biggest offender? The screenplay.

It announces its intentions almost immediately with lines like, "No guts, no glory" and "It's not luck, it's skill." They're the sort of motivational one-liners that sound as though they belong on an inspirational poster rather than in a sophisticated spy thriller.

From there, the story becomes increasingly dependent on convenient twists, an undercooked Alpha serum mythology and emotional turns that never quite earn the reactions they're chasing.

At various points, Alpha feels like Kill Bill wandered into the YRF Spy Universe before bumping into an old-school Bollywood sibling saga like Karan Arjun. There are simply too many ideas competing for attention and not enough emotional payoff.

Thankfully, Alia Bhatt never stops believing in the film, even when the film occasionally stops believing in itself.

She throws herself into the role with conviction, grounding scenes that often demand more from her than the screenplay is willing to provide. Sharvari matches her with equal commitment, embracing the physicality of the action with confidence and proving she belongs in this space.

Yet, despite being marketed as a two-woman action spectacle, Alpha never quite convinces you they are equals.

This is unmistakably Alia Bhatt's film.

From the hero entries to the emotional crescendos, the camera repeatedly reminds you where its loyalties lie. Sharvari is more than capable, but she's frequently positioned a step behind, almost as if the film itself isn't entirely ready to let two women occupy equal space. For a movie celebrating female solidarity, I found myself wishing it trusted both its stars equally.

The action, too, asks for a leap of faith.

Both actors give the fight sequences everything they've got, but the screenplay repeatedly expects us to believe they can pull off increasingly Herculean feats with very little explanation beyond the conveniently named Alpha serum.

It's not about whether women can headline action films—they absolutely can. It's about whether the film establishes believable rules for its own world. Here, the serum often feels less like clever world-building and more like a convenient shortcut whenever the story needs one.

Anil Kapoor lends authority whenever he appears.

Bobby Deol, meanwhile, continues to lean on the brooding, silent villain persona that has become his trademark. The deadpan expression, the glowering stare and the minimal dialogue may once have felt intimidating. Here, it begins to feel repetitive.

One of the film's biggest whistle-worthy moments belongs to Hrithik Roshan.

His Kabir appears draped in flowing monk-like robes, seemingly immersed in a Buddhist retreat. The cameo is an obvious attempt to expand the YRF Spy Universe, borrowing a page from Marvel's interconnected storytelling where familiar heroes casually wander into another franchise. It works. In fact, I found myself wishing the filmmakers had been even bolder. One cameo wasn't enough.

Visually, Alpha is glossy but never gritty.

The production values are lavish. The action choreography is slick. Every explosion, chase and fight sequence carries the sheen of a major studio production.

Ironically, that's also where the film loses some of its bite.

Everything is so sparklingly glossy, so meticulously choreographed and so carefully packaged that very little feels genuinely dangerous. After watching action films where every bruise matters and every punch leaves a mark, Alpha often feels sanitised—as though someone polished away the grit along with the imperfections.

And then Alpha blinks.

For almost two hours, the film works hard to establish Alia Bhatt and Sharvari as women capable of carrying a blockbuster action franchise entirely on their own terms.

Then, just before the finish line, it slips into a glossy dance number featuring the two leads in glamorous, body-hugging costumes. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a Bollywood song-and-dance sequence—it's part of our cinematic DNA—but its placement feels oddly disconnected from everything the film has spent the previous two hours trying to establish. After asking us to embrace these women purely as action heroes, the film suddenly retreats into a far more familiar commercial comfort zone.

It feels less like a celebration and more like hesitation. Perhaps that's why I walked away feeling conflicted rather than disappointed.

I admired what Alpha was trying to do, even when I wasn't convinced by how it did it. There's something undeniably exciting about seeing two talented actors stake their claim in a genre that has historically belonged to men. Alia Bhatt and Sharvari prove they have the charisma, screen presence and physicality to anchor a big-ticket action franchise. I only wish the film had trusted them and itself with a story every bit as fearless as the statement it was trying to make.