Mayday Review: Fun, Creative Buddy Comedy Isn't Just Blind '80s Nostalgia

It's a little too hemmed in to be truly great, but Apple TV's new action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh has more than enough life.

The past decade or so of movies and television has seen plenty of '80s nostalgia projects. (As of writing, you can still catch one of the latest examples, The End of Oak Street, in theaters.) The reasons to reach back seem to differ for different filmmakers, but as Top Gun: Maverick demonstrated, there's some hunger in American audiences for the mainstream simplicity of that era – when us and them felt clearly defined, and rooting for the good guys was allowed to be uncomplicated. No matter what politicians say, then or today, things can only really be so black-and-white in the movies. Sometimes, harkening back to that time is just a way to run away from ours.

Mayday is not quite like that. This new film from writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley is straightforward fun in the style of '80s buddy comedies, ultimately more reminiscent of something like Midnight Run than Top Gun. It entertains in a feel-good way. But, in referencing Top Gun as often as it does, it's also in dialogue with Maverick, and critical of it without being overbearing. Goldstein and Daley reach back to the past not only out of love for the movies of the time, but because they believe that period has something to teach us.

Mayday is not a home run; it's hard to have your cake and eat it, too. But it's a thoroughly enjoyable action comedy, filled with the same creativity that made this duo's previous projects, Game Night and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, so full of life. Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh are a winning odd-couple pair, and even if the film as a whole feels less original than some of its individual scenes do, those scenes are the kind of laugh-out-loud set pieces you'll find yourself wanting to recount to friends.

Kenneth Branagh's Russian Oddball Is Mayday's Secret Weapon

It is 1987. Ronald Reagan is President of the United States, and Mikhail Gorbachev is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Though people may not have known it at the time, the Cold War between these two superpowers that has shaped geopolitics for decades is approaching its end. Like Top Gun, the leading man in Mayday is a hotshot US Navy fighter pilot, Troy "Assassin" Kelly (Ryan Reynolds). But, unlike Top Gun, the Soviets can't be neatly chalked up as villains – though Troy certainly thinks they can. He's as firm a believer in the American way as they come.

So, when he's chosen to fly second chair in a top-secret mission to get aerial photographs of remote Soviet territory, he jumps at the chance. Unfortunately for him, the mission goes haywire. His plane is shot down, his co-pilot is dead, and he lands injured in the snow deep behind enemy lines. When he comes to, he's in the care of an intense, heavily bearded man named Nikolai (Kenneth Branagh), whose walls are decorated with a disconcerting amount of Americana. Sure, he's ex-KGB, and the most dangerous kind of KGB at that. But he promises he only wants to help. His dream is to one day go to the United States, and drive "from sea to shining sea in a recreational vehicle."

This set-up places Troy and "Nick," as he insists on being called, on the long, bumpy road to trusting each other. Troy has no choice but to accept Nick's help in getting safely back in American hands; Nikolai can only take Troy at his word that he'll use his new, war-hero clout to secure asylum for him and his estranged daughter Anna (Maria Bakalova). Their tenuous bond produces a lot of friction, and plenty of laughter – but also that fuzzy, buddy-comedy feeling you want from a movie like this.

Performance-wise, Reynolds is a slightly subdued version of his usual screen persona, and the movie gives him his opportunities for jokey commentary. (The early, pre-buddy sections of the film centered on Troy are its most routine.) But it's to Mayday's credit that he is largely deployed as the more centered protagonist, while Branagh plays both the primary action hero and out-of-pocket weirdo. Branagh's doing something special here, especially early on, when he's playing a man who has spent several years with very little human contact. His eye movements alone are laughlines. Against his performance, Troy's jokes become a fairly rational defense mechanism.

Mayday's Genre Is A Tight Fit For Its Filmmakers, But Their Creativity Still Shines Through

More intriguingly, their dynamic puts the Reynolds-ian hero in context. In Deadpool-mode, his mocking quips come from a place of impish superiority, well-suited to a meta-superhero who is served by being "above the movie." Here, Goldstein and Daley reframe it as a kind of American arrogance, belittling the Soviets he believes to be not only backward, but inferior. His misadventures with Nikolai afford him the opportunity to realize his worldview is far too simplistic, and that these historical enemies have things to learn from each other. It's a clever bit of casting that feeds into the larger ideas running through the film.

Mayday also finds a villain to suit those thematic goals. State security official Alexander Volkov (Marcin Dorociński) is among the Gorbachev dissenters; he waited two years to replace the previous Soviet leader's portrait in his office. He believes his country opening up to the world, rather than striving to dominate it, is a mistake. When he learns an American spy plane was downed and one of the pilots survived, he sees his opportunity to chill the thawing relations between the US and the Soviet Union. It's important that the film's villain is not the state as a whole, or the Soviets as a people, but a representation of the forces that perpetuate division and war.

Volkov exists primarily to drive this message home, because Troy and Nick's story doesn't really need him – the vast country they must cross, and all the military and security personnel they could encounter, are all the obstacles they need. Daley and Goldstein's skills shine most at this scene-to-scene level. They excel at dropping the heroes into a tricky situation and finding surprising (and hilarious) ways for it to unfold. A train-set sequence is full of fun, action-based storytelling; a much quieter one that takes place in a closet is one of the funniest bits of the year. All of it is framed by lively filmmaking that always aims to present what's on-screen in an interesting way – too rare a trait these days.

As much success as they find, this material isn't the most natural fit for their talents. They feel a little more hemmed in by these genre beats than in their previous two films, where they cultivated a tone that was a little more free. But Mayday is still a really good time that finds many opportunities to twist our expectations in delightful little ways.

Mayday is available to stream on Apple TV from Friday, September 4.

Release Date September 4, 2026

Runtime 110 minutes

Director John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Writers Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Producers Ashley Fox, Dana Goldberg, David Ellison, Don Granger, John G. Scotti, Johnny Pariseau, Jonathan Goldstein, Patrick Gooing