This is a decent movie with story line that has mythological connection to what we all know - Brahma's Astra = Brahmastra.
However the movie can neither compete with South Indian movies like RRR or KFG nor set a bigger benchmark on its own.
Reason 1: sloppy storyline. Bollywood has some of the lousy story writers basically illiterate freelancers who work basis North India relations can only write stories only about girl & boy love, sex, drugs, underworld etc. Same old stuff since ages.
Reason 2: while Ranbir Kapoor (RK) is a decent actor but down South there are many better actors than RK who can deliver dialogs and act much better at 1/3rd of what RK charges for any movie. Ms. Alia Bhatt is a 3rd class actress. Age wise Ms. Pooja Hegde, Ms. Pooja Sawant, Ms. Rashmika Mandanna and even Ms. Sai Pallavi act better than Ms. Alia Bhatt. That's why she was used only for 15 mins in RRR.
Reason 3: Too much focus on character rather than the story. Bollywood is yet to learn its lesson. Now a days post covid, story and movie visualization is bigger than its star. The days of SRK are long over. In bollywood the treatment of star being bigger than movie still exists. Some more flops and they will learn it the hard way.
We await for the day when even the actors can be created in CGI and that day no producer would need to spend Rs400 crores for movies like these nor do the viewers would need to spend Rs 450 per ticket in any theatre. Just Download and Enjoy.