‘Mayday’

A mildly amusing adventure, Mayday can’t help but feel held back.

There’s a lot to like about Mayday, from its oddball Cold War premise to some genuinely inventive action, but the latest from John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein never quite becomes the rousing, irreverent adventure it threatens to be. It’s a perfectly decent, occasionally very entertaining watch, just one that leaves you wishing it had taken a few more risks.

Reynolds plays a Navy pilot whose black-ops mission goes spectacularly wrong, leaving him stranded behind enemy lines during the Cold War. His unlikely refuge is Nikolai “Nik” (Kenneth Branagh), an eccentric former KGB agent with a sincere fascination with America, largely informed by Top Gun. Nik offers to help him escape in exchange for asylum, sending the mismatched pair on the run together.

The setup is a clever enough excuse for a buddy comedy, with the film lightly poking at the propaganda both countries have fed each other. It never digs particularly deep, happily pivoting from its surface-level ideas about national stereotypes to the next gag, but there’s something refreshing about it trying at all. The villains are cartoonish, the story is hardly revolutionary and the reluctant-friends formula is well-worn, yet the pair’s chemistry keeps it afloat.

It helps enormously that Branagh is clearly having a great time. Nik could easily have been reduced to an eccentric Russian caricature, but Branagh gives him a deadpan sincerity and an unexpected vulnerability that makes him feel like a person rather than a punchline. He’s funny, surprisingly sweet and more emotionally invested in his escape than Reynolds’ character ever feels. Their friendship genuinely grows on you, with Branagh providing much of the film’s heart while also throwing himself into the action with delightful commitment. Apparently, the man can do everything.

Reynolds, meanwhile, is playing Ryan Reynolds. His familiar snarky, bewildered straight-man routine is tolerable thanks to some decent writing and his chemistry with Branagh, but it’s difficult not to wonder how much more interesting the film might have been with someone less wedded to the Reynolds persona. His presence makes an otherwise somewhat fresh premise feel oddly familiar.

Maria Bakalova is similarly underused, bringing warmth and gravitas as Nik’s daughter in a role that leaves you wanting considerably more of her.

The real injection of creativity comes from behind the camera. Daley and Goldstein’s fingerprints are all over the film’s kinetic action and playful camerawork, with constantly moving sequences, inventive choreography and practical stunt work that make even its thinner material look stylish. It doesn’t have the increasingly interchangeable John Wick-style action grammar, instead finding something more mischievous and distinctly theirs. You can see the filmmakers trying to push the material somewhere more interesting, even when the story itself refuses to follow.

Unfortunately, the film loses steam in its third act, where the sentimentality gets bigger and cheesier than the rest of the movie has earned. It’s also a fairly light affair, with a limited sense of scale that makes Mayday feel more naturally suited to a casual night on the couch than a trip to the cinema.

Still, there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours. Mayday is for anyone craving an old-school action comedy with some cool filmmaking, Reynolds completists and, frankly, dads who just want something fun to chuck on. It’s not a hidden gem, but Branagh, the action and Daley and Goldstein’s visual flair make it an easy enough watch.