In the dying days of the cold war, you should be so lucky as to crash your U.S. military spy plane a few miles from a disgruntled, America-loving former KGB agent.
Mayday
The film debuts globally Friday, September 4, 2026, exclusively on Apple TV.
Written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the comedy team behind the wretched Vacation remake, the very clever Game Night, and the better than expected Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, there was every reason to hope that Mayday would also be better than expected, even if its central premise -- a U.S. Navy pilot crash lands in Soviet territory and must team up with an ex-KGB agent -- sounded outlandishly outdated and hopelessly naive.
In their original script, Daley -- who first worked with Ryan Reynolds as a fellow actor on 2005's Waiting -- and Goldstein early on confirms that Reynolds will be playing a slight variation on his usual comic persona, the wisecracking wise guy who is secretly wonderful and supernaturally gifted at whatever he does, with just a touch of a flaw of some sort that makes him more relatable to mere mortals. His "flaw" here is that his character, Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy 'Assassin' Kelly, is blinded by his own patriotism, so that he can't even consider the possibility that anyone or anything associated with the USSR is not evil.
His uber-patriotic stance begins to thaw when, in 1987, he is sent as a co-pilot (back seat observer) on a super secret mission to spy on the Soviet Union. Shot by enemy fire, the pilot dies, and the plane crash-lands somewhere where it is very cold and snowy. Fortunately, Troy is rescued by a Soviet citizen who is living in a cabin in the woods that is plastered with American decals and movie posters. (What are the odds?)
The Soviet citizen is Nikolai Ustinov -- "call me Nick," though he never adds 'and don't ever refer to the great Peter Ustinov,' because that would too obvious -- and it's soon revealed that Nick is a former KGB agent who grew ashamed of what he did when he looked into the eyes of his daughter, Anna. (I watched this while alone, but I could imagine the intended audience softly saying 'aaah' in sympathy.)
Portrayed by the great Russian British actor Kenneth Branagh, Nick yearns to emigrate to America, but knows this will never be possible, unless, by chance, an American crash landed near his cabin and needed help to escape. (What are the odds?)
First, though, Troy must steal Nick's truck, which he drives to a nearby bar, and then tries to make contact with the U.S. Embassy by phone, of course. All three or four loyal Soviet citizens in the bar try to capture the obviously non-Soviet Troy, and they nearly succeed, before Nick, having walked several miles through the snow and across icy roads, arrives, thirsty for a beer, perhaps. Instead, he reveals his training as Liam Neeson's Taken stand-in a KGB agent and beats the crap out of the drunken patrons. (Who says men in their 60s can't have moves?)
Soon, Troy and Nick are hopping a train that mysteriously fills up with hundreds of troops while they are snoozing, and the more outlandish side of the adventure fully blossoms. From there, it's one adventure after another, each more outlandish than the last, leading to sequences that blow up many, many vehicles and involve many, many extras, and require many, many visual effects to minimize damage to the environment.
Though the action becomes risibly ridiculous, the tone was set by Daley and Goldstein at the outset; they just keep amping it up more and more, so that one can't help but admire the sheer audacity of the filmmakers. It's as if they said, 'oh, you think that's unbelievable? Just wait.'
Or, 'are you offended by the idea that we are ignoring what is going on in the war that Russia is conducting against Ukraine? Well, watch our fantasy instead, in which we update Norman Jewison's Cold War comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) to the late 1980s Cold War.'
Strictly as a comedy, admittedly, it's enjoyable for those who prefer their action to be bluntly humorous, extremely large-scale, and to employ as many stunt people and visual effects artists as possible. Yeah for employing hundreds of people!