‘Mayday’, the Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh action-comedy, premiered on Apple TV on Friday, 4 September 2026, and the first reviews have handed it a Cold War buddy movie win.
Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the film opened with an 84% approval rating from its first 25 reviews, as reported by Hollywood Reporter.
It plays like a love letter to Top Gun and 1980s buddy comedies, with a Cold War plot and a Russian pursuit driving the action.
What the ‘Mayday’ reviews say about Ryan Reynolds
The setup is pure 1980s throwback dressed in modern gloss, a buddy movie that wears its Top Gun affection openly while a Cold War pursuit keeps the pair moving.
Daley and Goldstein lean on chase momentum and banter rather than plot mechanics, and the early consensus says the combination works.
For anyone who grew up on rented action tapes, the pitch is easy to read: fighter jet swagger stitched to the odd-couple template where neither man chose his passenger. That is the engine, and it runs.
Ryan Reynolds does what Reynolds does, and that is where a few critics raised an eyebrow. The fast-talking, self-aware screen persona he has built across several previous roles turns up again here, comfortable rather than surprising.
It lands the jokes, but reviewers noticed how familiar the register has become.
Kenneth Branagh steals ‘Mayday’ from Ryan Reynolds
Branagh plays a former KGB agent, a properly formidable one, who happens to be besotted with American culture. His party trick is Top Gun, a film he has watched more times than most of the fans who own the poster.
Critics called him the comic and emotional surprise of the piece.
That is not a small thing to say about a cast fronted by Ryan Reynolds. Reviewers were near unanimous that Branagh takes every scene he appears in and quietly walks off with it, which is the sort of note that follows a performance around all season.
Where ‘Mayday’ runs into turbulence
It is not a flawless flight. The comedy does not fire at the same pitch throughout, and the Cold War politics sit fairly shallow for a film that builds its whole chase around them.
None of that has dented the goodwill much, but the wobbles were noted more than once.
There is no box office scoreboard for a streaming original, so the 84% figure and the review count behind it are all there is to watch, and both will move as more critics file. Daley and Goldstein have made a Cold War caper that survives its own thin politics, which is more than most throwbacks manage.
