Every entry in the Yash Raj Films Spy Universe follows a familiar shape: a charismatic Indian agent, a globe-trotting mission, a slick action set piece — and, more often than not, a shadowy antagonist tied back to Pakistan. “Alpha,” the franchise’s latest installment starring Alia Bhatt and Sharvari, is no exception, and its release has reignited a conversation that has followed the YRSU for years: has Bollywood’s most successful action franchise become dependent on a single, increasingly tired antagonist formula?
A Pattern a Decade in the Making
The YRF Spy Universe was built on films like “Ek Tha Tiger,” “Tiger Zinda Hai,” “War,” and “Pathaan” — each pairing a charismatic Indian intelligence operative against threats that, directly or indirectly, trace back to Pakistan-based terror networks or rogue intelligence operatives. The formula has been commercially reliable. It has also become, in the eyes of many critics and audiences, predictable to the point of fatigue.
“Alpha” continues this pattern, even as it breaks new ground by centering two female leads for the first time in franchise history. Reviewers have noted that beneath the film’s genuinely fresh dynamic between its two stars, the underlying plot machinery — the geopolitical framing, the nationalist messaging, the villain archetype — remains largely unchanged from a decade of prior entries.
What Critics Are Saying
The response to this specific element of “Alpha” has been notably split, and not always along the lines you’d expect. Some viewers have expressed open fatigue with the trope. One audience review of the film put it bluntly, criticizing the persistent framing as a stale narrative device that the franchise leans on “all the time,” suggesting the genre needs to move past it.
That frustration isn’t new, and it isn’t limited to audiences. Critics reviewing YRSU entries over the years have repeatedly flagged the franchise’s tendency to substitute geopolitical shorthand for genuine plot tension — using a familiar antagonist as a narrative shortcut rather than building conflict that feels earned. It’s a critique common to long-running action franchises generally: when a formula works commercially, studios have little incentive to abandon it, even as it grows stale.
Why This Matters Beyond Box Office Numbers
This isn’t just a storytelling critique — it touches on a broader conversation about how popular cinema shapes public perception. Action franchises operate at massive scale; a YRF release reaches tens of millions of viewers across India and its diaspora. When the same national antagonist appears film after film, year after year, it does more than provide a convenient villain — it reinforces a simplified, adversarial narrative about a neighboring country and its people, at a scale that shapes public sentiment far more than any single news cycle.
Film scholars and cultural critics have long pointed out that action cinema’s antagonists are rarely just characters — they’re stand-ins for anxieties, geopolitics, and national identity, whether the filmmakers intend that or not. A franchise as dominant as the YRSU carries outsized weight in that regard. Its choices about who the villain is, and how that villain is portrayed, aren’t neutral creative decisions; they’re choices with real cultural reach.
A Franchise at a Crossroads
What makes this moment particularly interesting is that “Alpha” is, in other respects, a franchise actively trying to evolve. Putting two women at the center of a genre historically dominated by male stars is a genuine structural shift, and it’s one that’s been largely well-received. The film’s action choreography and lead performances have drawn real praise.
That contrast — a franchise willing to break new ground on gender representation while remaining largely static on its antagonist formula — is arguably the more interesting story here than “Alpha” itself. It raises a fair question for YRF and franchises like it: if a series can evolve its heroes, why does its villain formula stay frozen in place?
There are signs the broader Bollywood action landscape is starting to diversify its antagonists beyond this well-worn framing — pulling from global terror networks, corporate villains, or ambiguous rogue actors instead. Whether the YRSU follows suit, or continues to lean on a formula that’s proven reliable at the box office even as it draws increasing criticism, may say a lot about where Indian mainstream action cinema goes from here.
The Takeaway
“Alpha” is a film of two competing instincts: genuinely progressive in its choice of leads, conventional — critics would say stale — in its choice of villain. That tension isn’t unique to this film, but it’s rarely been this visible, precisely because the rest of the movie is doing something new. As Bollywood’s biggest action franchise keeps growing, the question of who gets to be the hero seems to be evolving. The question of who gets cast as the enemy, less so — and that gap is increasingly hard for critics and audiences alike to ignore.
