In 1987, with the Cold War between the United States and Russia still going strong, a U.S. Navy pilot, Troy “Assassin” Kelly (Ryan Reynolds), is shot down over Russia. Rescued by ex-KGB operative Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh), a fan of American culture, he offers his assistance in exchange for asylum in America.

Mayday is so close to being a really great homage and update to the 1980s Cold War buddy comedies in the vein of Red Heat and Spies Like Us that the fact it just misses the mark is immensely frustrating.

The premise is exemplary. Nikolai is obsessed with Top Gun, a film that came out the year before the movie is set. He has watched his bootleg VHS tape so many times that he knows it off by heart. And then a U.S. Navy pilot literally lands at his doorstep! What better sign that he should help him and escape to the United States, the land of the free?

The buddy comedy japes also align with another 1980s great, Midnight Run, where our duo initially really do not get on and spar verbally with each other.

Kenneth Branagh is rather spectacular. He manages to land the action, the comedy and the drama. Everything that he does in this film brings a big smile to your face, especially as he has done the evil Russian before in the likes of Tenet and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, making it so much funnier that here he is the good Russian.

My issue with the movie, though, is Ryan Reynolds. And I firmly accept that, given his ability to draw in box office numbers, this might be an issue personally for me that a number of you do not share. But the entire film is brought to its knees by the fact that Ryan Reynolds is just doing Ryan Reynolds’ tired comedy schtick. It seems that Reynolds has given up all semblance of acting as anything other than the most sarcastic man in the universe, and it has become insufferable. At no point is he believable as anything other than Ryan Reynolds in a film where he is supposed to be playing a U.S. Navy pilot in 1987. So much so that near the end of the movie, when a key plot development happens, I genuinely went, “oh yeah, he is a pilot” in my head.

Writer/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are clearly hugely talented, having given us Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves. And this is absolutely on show whenever Kenneth Branagh is delivering his winning performance. But personally for me, they needed another lead who was not going to derail the film with their own personality.