Mayday

The filmmakers behind Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, bring a Cold War comedy that is far more entertaining than it looks on paper. Ryan Reynolds plays an American pilot who crash lands in enemy territory, aka the former USSR, during a covert mission, while Kenneth Branagh plays his new Russian friend, a former KGB agent, who is his only way out. With great Top Gun (1986) references and gasp-inducing action sequences, the streaming entertainer ideally deserved a big-screen outing.

Ryan Reynolds repurposes his Deadpool routine in Mayday, the new Apple TV action-comedy film, in which he plays a downed American pilot during the height of the Cold War. With the blockbuster Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) having proven that his fast-talking, quip-based acting style works only in short doses and when it’s offset by an on-screen foil, Reynolds is made to team up in Mayday with Kenneth Branagh, who plays a stoic former agent of the KGB (Soviet intelligence and internal security agency), having a crisis of conscience. Together, they make a bid for freedom in a stylishly made, briskly paced and surprisingly sensitive entertainer that has no business being this good.