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It's hard to think of action movies in the 1980s without pointing to the pairing of Goose and Maverick as one of the all-time greats. That was clearly the inspiration for filmmakers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley with their new film "Mayday," streaming on Apple TV. While the film includes some humorous exchanges and fun action set pieces, its lack of character depth makes it immediately forgettable.
It’s the mid-1980s, and Navy pilot Troy Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) has been sent behind enemy lines in Soviet Russia. When his plane crashes, he is rescued by former KGB officer Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh). Nikolai has a deep love of American culture, showing off his bootleg copy of "Top Gun" and his deep love of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." These two men from vastly different worlds have to learn to appreciate one another's differences in order to find their way to safety.
If you like Reynolds and his "Deadpool" character, you will probably enjoy "Mayday." If, like me, you are worn out by this charming but inch-deep character, you may find this movie a bit tedious. This is because the story is fairly straightforward, with no real stakes, so the weight falls on the likability of the two leads. And while they do have decent chemistry, there is not quite enough there to make up for the lack of a compelling narrative. And if we're going to try out a questionable story about an allyship between Russia and America, it should probably be very compelling.
As mentioned, the performances in this aren't bad, particularly if you enjoy what Reynolds has been doing for the past decade. He is quippy, with some jokes landing and some feeling incredibly out of place in a period film. The real delight in "Mayday" is Branagh. He pours much more heart into his performance, and anything that feels grounded comes from him. This helps the friendship to some degree, but when the two start to examine what separates them, it feels rushed and heavy-handed. Maria Bakalova has a nice role as Nikolai's daughter, Anna, but the rest of the supporting cast has little memorable going on.
There are some really fun action set pieces in "Mayday." There's a train sequence that is truly exciting, and the vehicle they steal to help Troy get home is one of the most entertaining moments in the film. A few of the CGI elements look a bit shoddy, but overall, if there's an element that is successful in the film, it is the action. There are comedic moments, but they felt much less effective throughout, with only a few laughs in what was billed a comedy.
Because "Game Night" is one of my favorite comedies of the past decade, and "Dungeons and Dragons" was such a surprisingly great movie, I hoped that "Mayday" would be yet another lightning strike. Unfortunately, for all of the rumbling, nothing really materialized, leaving no need for a mayday call at all.
Alise Chaffins is a freelance and Tomatometer-approved film critic.