Soviet Russia, 1987. US Navy pilot Troy Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) crashes behind enemy lines during a Black Ops mission, and his only chance at getting home is teaming up with ex-KGB agent and Top Gun mega-fan Nikolai (Kenneth Branagh).
When you hear the words “buddy-comedy action movie starring Ryan Reynolds”, you probably feel like you have a good idea of what to expect — some slick fights, endless witty quips, and a reasonably entertaining time. Mayday delivers on all of that, and a little bit more.
The film opens with Reynolds’ pilot, Troy, waking up post-crash-landing, a huge bit of plane poking out of his leg and an unknown potential adversary walking towards him, right as he passes out. It’s a very Deadpool-esque, record-scratch, ‘you’re probably wondering how I got here’ moment, but Mayday never fully succumbs to Reynolds’ most grating one-liner-spouting tendencies. It instead balances his comedic charm with genuine tenderness — Troy is just a guy who loves flying planes, loves his dad, and (as he learns in quite a clichéd way, misguidedly) loves his country.
A genuinely entertaining, if highly predictable, watch.
Turns out that potential adversary was in fact a newfound friend, in the form of Kenneth Branagh’s straight-talking, slightly unsettling Nikolai Ustinov. Obsessed with an idealistic version of the USA, his bootleg copy of Top Gun and the promise of tasting a McDonald’s, Nikolai’s also a lethal ex-KGB agent, and gets almost all of the cool action moments in this movie — think hand-to-hand combat, a police chase involving a nuclear missile, and enough pool-fu to make John Wick jealous.
Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves directing duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein bring their signature filmmaking flair to said action moments, swinging their camera around, attaching it to car doors and dropping in impactful overhead angles — a lovely side-shot of Nikolai and Troy driving their car against numerous rural and urban Russian backdrops sticks in the mind. The sequence of Troy’s plane crash is also impressive, with one shot tracking him flipping the plane vertically, ejecting right before the enemy aircraft hits, and perilously parachuting down to the ground.
This camera trickery is vital in elevating _Mayda_y’s thoroughly conventional script, and while Maria Bakalova brings a lot of heart with barely any screen time as Nikolai’s estranged daughter Anna, Reynolds and Branagh’s crackling odd-couple chemistry is the star of the show. Throw in some almost interesting gestures towards questioning American patriotism, and the morality of a nation that consistently casts itself as the hero, and you’ve got a genuinely entertaining, if highly predictable, watch.
No need to declare an emergency here — thanks to two compelling central performances from Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh, engaging aesthetics and well-choreographed fight scenes, Mayday makes for a solid comedy-action combo.