Mayday: Ryan Reynolds’ buddy movie and Sisu’s brother

Apple has spent the last few years insisting on a type of movie that is starting to follow a fairly recognizable formula: a couple of well-known stars, action, some humor, glossy production values and that's it. You have something easy to watch for a night on the couch.

There are Ghosted, with Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, The Family Plan, with Mark Wahlberg, Argylle or Wolfs, where they put George Clooney and Brad Pitt together and which, for me, is the best of the lot, without exactly being a masterpiece.

Different movies, of course, but with the same intention of offering light entertainment that leans heavily on the charisma of its leads. 

Mayday returns to that territory, this time with a Ryan Reynolds in his usual mode and a Kenneth Branagh who is surprisingly convincing as a killing machine. In the background: the Cold War, spies, planes, Soviets, action and humor.  

It is also directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the same people behind Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, another movie the critics liked quite a bit more than I did.

So maybe the problem is mine with these two, because I just can't quite warm to them.

And the thing is, as Mayday went on, I constantly had the feeling that I had already seen practically everything it was showing me. The plot offers few surprises, the jokes don't either and, although the action scenes are well shot, only a handful of them manage to lift a movie that also runs close to two hours.

I'll get into all of that now.

What is Mayday about?

The story takes place in 1987, in the middle of the Cold War. Ryan Reynolds plays Troy Kelly, a U.S. Navy pilot taking part in a secret mission over Soviet territory that, as you would expect, ends up going pretty badly.

Kelly ends up wounded and isolated behind enemy lines, where he meets Nikolai Ustinov, played by Kenneth Branagh. Nikolai is a rather peculiar former KGB agent, especially because he has an enormous fascination with the United States and its culture.

From there the movie becomes a classic buddy movie. Two characters who should belong to opposing sides end up working together to try to get the American pilot out of the country while the Soviets chase them.

The movie doesn't try to create huge tension between them to highlight their differences. Quite the opposite: they get along fairly quickly and it soon becomes clear they are going to work well as a pair.

Ryan Reynolds is still Ryan Reynolds

With Ryan Reynolds, you get exactly what you expect:

He plays Ryan Reynolds.

You know, that likable, sarcastic lead who tends to crack jokes even while his enemies are beating the hell out of him.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, because he has a lot of charisma and knows exactly how to play this kind of character, but he has already made quite a few movies doing more or less the same thing.

That means that if you like Reynolds, the pitch will appeal to you. The guy is likable, charismatic and can carry almost any scene just by talking to someone. But it also means that if you're getting a little tired of that register, Mayday isn't going to offer you anything different.

In my case, it was a bit uneven: there is plenty of humor throughout the movie, but it rarely actually made me laugh. Unlike his flirting with Deadpool, for example.

And that's where the problems start piling up: the character feels familiar, so do the jokes, and the story doesn't surprise either. Fortunately, though, there is one element that breaks from the norm.

Kenneth Branagh is the best thing about Mayday

Kenneth Branagh's character and performance are, by far, the best thing in the movie.

When he first appears, it looks as though his role will be the usual serious counterpoint to Reynolds' humor. He's a former KGB agent, lives in a rather peculiar way and has an almost childlike fascination with certain American things.

So far, exactly what you'd expect.

The surprise comes when the action starts and you discover that the apparently calm man you've just met is a killing machine.

Very much in the style of Sisu, the Finnish movie in which a man who doesn't seem particularly special turns out to be practically indestructible and starts dispatching Nazis one after another.  

I couldn't stop thinking about that movie throughout Mayday, even though the characters and films have little to do with each other. Nikolai is Soviet, Aatami Korpi is Finnish, and the two stories start from very different premises. 

On top of that, all of his action scenes work. From the first to the last.

Beyond the action side, the character also reminded me a little of the way some superhero movies have transformed characters who used to take themselves much more seriously. 

There are several examples, starting with the most obvious one: Colossus, who accompanies Deadpool in his movies, since he's Soviet too and has a similar accent. Thor in Ragnarok is another good example, or even that Hulk merged with Banner whose rage is very well hidden.

Branagh has a bit of that here.

The pair works better than the movie

Branagh and Reynolds also work very well together on screen.

You notice it pretty quickly because the movie doesn't spend much time turning them into enemies before they start helping each other. Nikolai is curious about Troy almost from the beginning, and the relationship develops naturally.

It's one of the movie's strengths. You don't need a character arc to bring them together. They simply work well together and the movie improves whenever they interact.

The problem is that when the movie moves away from them and goes back to focusing on the spy plot, it loses all its energy.

As for the rest of the cast, they left me pretty indifferent. Nobody stands out for better or worse. No character gets in the way, but you won't remember any of them three days later.

Probably not Troy and Nikolai either.

The action is solid, even if we've seen it many times before

Technically, there isn't much to complain about either.

The action scenes are well choreographed and perfectly easy to follow, which I really appreciate. There isn't that frantic editing where you know two people are fighting but have to guess who is doing what.

This is especially noticeable in Branagh's scenes, because the movie lets us see how he moves and how he takes out his opponents. 

There are also a few more entertaining and ambitious scenes, like the truck carrying the nuclear missile, which could easily have appeared in True Lies without any problem. They're the sort of moments that add the exaggerated touch an action comedy like this needs.

On the other hand, I also think the period setting is quite well done. The sets, vehicles and locations help place you in the Soviet Union of the late eighties, and the movie has a fairly convincing look.

So the problem isn't that Mayday is badly made.

It's well shot, has some decent fights, good actors and a more than competent visual finish.

The problem is that almost none of it manages to surprise.

Paths that are far too well travelled

I think this is the main reason I got pretty bored watching it.

The movie uses a collection of elements we've seen countless times before: 

• The American soldier trapped in enemy territory.
• The unlikely pair who end up becoming friends.
• The Soviets are the bad guys.
• Chases and fights we've already seen (done better) in hundreds of movies.
• And, of course, the usual jokes in the middle of dangerous situations.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with a movie using familiar formulas. If I did, we could hardly watch any commercial cinema at all.

But if you're going to use those pieces, you need to do something especially well: make the action spectacular, make the characters memorable, make the jokes land consistently, or keep the pace so strong that you never get bored.

Here everything stops halfway. Competent, but never dazzling. In anything. Just like almost every similar Apple movie.

And that's why I thought of The Fall Guy, which also mixed action, comedy, famous stars and a relatively simple story without pretending to reinvent the wheel.

Yet I found that one vastly more entertaining. It had more energy and, above all, managed to make the whole more fun than each element on its own. 

In Mayday I get exactly the opposite: I can list plenty of things it does well, but when you put them together the result doesn't work for me.

As I said, it follows Apple's line with this kind of movie — what an enormous difference compared with the series it produces — and one that many Netflix movies follow too. Works designed mainly to give you an easy watch with familiar actors, plenty of action, a fast pace and spectacle.

If that's what you're looking for, perfect, it won't disappoint you. But to me Mayday -and all the ones mentioned above- feel more showy than effective.

Almost two hours is too long for this story

On top of all that, there's the running time.

Mayday runs about 110 minutes, which isn't outrageous. The problem is that the story is very simple, there are no major twists and little character development. That's why I think it has quite a few minutes to spare.

With twenty or thirty minutes cut, it would be more entertaining and more direct.

And my way of measuring this is pretty simple: if, during an action comedy that's supposed to keep you hooked, you start checking your phone or looking at how much time is left, they've stretched it too far.

Obviously, that's what happened to me here.

Conclusions and verdict

Mayday is not a bad movie. The shooting and editing are competent, the action scenes are pretty good, the Soviet setting catches the eye, and Ryan Reynolds is charismatic enough to carry this kind of movie on his shoulders.

But it bored me, which is the worst thing that can happen with a movie whose whole goal is to entertain and fly by.

Everything I was watching felt familiar and recycled, with the exception of a Kenneth Branagh character who is clearly having a great time.

If you like Ryan Reynolds, enjoy mixing humor and action, and just want something simple to put on for a while, you'll probably find it entertaining (more than I did).

If you're looking for something surprising, with an interesting plot or something that sticks with you after it ends, I think there are better options.

Mayday technical details

Field	Details
Title	Mayday
Year	2026
Directors	John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein
Screenplay	John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein
Main cast	Ryan Reynolds, Kenneth Branagh, Maria Bakalova, Marcin Dorociński and David Morse
Genre	Action, comedy and espionage
Setting	1987, during the Cold War
Running time	110 minutes / 1 h 50 min
Platform	Apple TV
Release	4 September 2026
Budget	Estimated at around 25 million dollars
My rating	2,5/5