'Mayday' (2026): Kenneth Branagh Steals the Show From Ryan Reynolds in an Unapologetically Formulaic Throwback
A crowd-pleasing '80s buddy comedy that never once tries to be anything more than that — for better and for worse.
One of the things I've come to appreciate about Apple TV+ is a certain restraint in its output: fewer movies than the other streamers, but a noticeably higher hit rate when it comes to films that actually feel theatrical-grade rather than glorified TV flicks. Mayday fits comfortably into that pattern — not a knockout, but a genuinely well-made, well-cast diversion that knows precisely what kind of movie it wants to be and never strains to become something bigger. That's roughly where I landed with it too: a solid, unpretentious watch that earns its place among Apple's swings without asking to be remembered past the weekend.
The whole thing rides on the chemistry between Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool & Wolverine) and Kenneth Branagh (Tenet), and it's the latter who walks away with the film. I'll admit I've grown a little tired of Reynolds leaning on the same rapid-fire, self-aware persona outside the Deadpool franchise — it's a mode that, for me, rarely lands with the same precision elsewhere, no matter how talented I may find him — but Mayday keeps that instinct on a short enough leash that it never overwhelms the movie the way it has in some of his other outings. Branagh, meanwhile, seems to be having a blast: rough, oddly tender, and unexpectedly funny as a former KGB agent whose entire worldview has been shaped by an obsession with American culture. Maria Bakalova (The Apprentice), Marcin Dorociński (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One), and David Morse (The Green Mile) round out the cast competently, even if none of them get much to actually do.
Credit where it's due: Goldstein and Daley know how to keep a film like this moving. The fight choreography is sharp, the camera work during the action sequences has real clarity and weight, and there's more genuine location shooting here than most streaming originals bother to invest in. The pacing never drags, and the tone shifts between comedy and stakes without much friction. That efficiency, though, is also the movie's ceiling: everything works exactly as smoothly as you'd expect, which means nothing about it surprises you either.
And that's the real issue at the heart of Mayday: it's content to be formulaic in the most transparent way possible, hitting every beat you'd expect from this genre without ever raising the stakes or taking a genuine risk. There was a stretch where I expected a twist that would have justified some of the setup — it never comes, and the film just keeps going through the motions instead. The supporting cast suffers most from this timidity: Bakalova's and Dorociński's characters barely register as more than plot function, and Morse's subplot as Troy's ailing father gets introduced and dropped without earning its emotional beats — at that point, trimming them might have made for a tighter, more focused movie. Some of the comedy also leans hard on U.S.-specific cultural references that likely won't travel well internationally, and the Cold War setting itself never amounts to more than set dressing; there's no real interest here in saying anything about the era beyond using it as a backdrop for the buddy dynamic.
None of that makes Mayday a bad time — it's an easy, well-produced throwback that mostly gets by on the pleasure of watching two actors with wildly different energies bounce off each other for under two hours. It just never asks to be anything more than that, and by the end, you're left wondering what the film might have looked like if it had.
Rating: B-
