Jonathan Goldstein – Movie Musings

Branagh throws down big time in this unsurprising but fun popcorn buddy action flick

Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Cast: Ryan Reynolds (Troy “Assassin” Kelly), Kenneth Branagh (Nikolai Ustinov), Marcin Dorociński (Alexander Volkov), Maria Bakalova (Anna Ustinov), David Morse (Harold Kelly), Clark Johnson (Keith Hardwick), Wendy Crewson (Karen Meadows), Louis Cancelmi (Pete Sanders), Josh Hamilton (Dan Hennessey)

Did anyone have on their 2026 film-bingo card “Kenneth Branagh throws goons around in an action movie”? Saying it’s a big change of pace feels like an understatement, with Branagh confessing in interviews he was delighted to get the opportunity to do something so different. So we get to see the actor most associated with Shakespeare slamming punches and kicks into bad guys and also showing some mean comic chops mixing the banter with Ryan Reynolds.

It’s 1987 and Reynolds is ace American pilot Troy “Assassin” Kelly, shot down over Russia during an off-the-books spy mission. The badly injured Troy wakes up tied to a bed in the home of Nikola Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh). Nikolai is obsessed with all-things-American (“I have not eaten McDonalds but I expect I would find it delicious”), his favourite film is Top Gun which he has seen multiple times on a dodgy bootleg VHS and having an American pilot buddy is his dream. He also, fortunately, is a deadly former KGB operative, willing to help Troy escape his former employers so long as Troy can deliver American passports for Nikolai and his estranged dissident daughter Anna (Maria Bakalova). Cue a buddy road-trip through the dangers of the Soviet Union.

Mayday delivers what you hope it will do: fast-paced, witty entertainment for a Saturday night, with two charismatic actors having a whale of a time bouncing off each other. Reynolds can nearly do this sort of off-the-cuff, improvisational cool in his sleep, expertly making Troy someone wittily cool but also brilliant at his job and deeply caring about his men and (dying) father. Few other actors are as comfortable with the casual quip, the gentle leaning on the fourth wall or leave us in no doubt about his competence even while he spends most of the film floundering out of his depth, limping around and bleating in limited Russian.

Reynolds is undeniable funny and charismatic, but he generously gifts much of the finest moments to Branagh. Covered with a Grizzily Adams beard (obviously referenced by Reynolds), Branagh’s under-appreciated gift for comedy is utilised to superb effect. He makes Dimitri hilariously endearing in his naive thrill at his American guest, or the dry enthusiasm he gives to subjects as diverse as McDonalds, Springsteen and Tom Cruise. But he’s also equally deadpan when discussing every single element of espionage spycraft, commenting on events around him (from fights to lovemaking) with a hilarious matter-of-fact laconic bluntness. Branagh’s sensitive eyes also show the vulnerability of a lonely man, plagued with guilt for his failures as a father.

And Branagh, it seems, can throw down. Mayday gives him multiple opportunities for impressively choreographed fights. From a bar-room brawl that uses snooker cues, bottles, arrows and anything else to hand to a machine-gun grabbing train dust-up to using everything from pens to seatbelts in various other fights. Mayday races from entertaining set-piece to entertaining set-piece, after its initial misdirection opening which suggests we might be in for a sort of lightweight Misery with Reynolds as a bed-strapped Jimmy Caan and Branagh as a genial Kathy Bates.

It’s all so entertaining and snaps along so pacily in just over 90 minutes, well-assembled with a witty series of shots and edits by directors John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein that it almost doesn’t matter that the film truthfully has very little in it that is truly new. In fact, with its 1980s setting, it almost adds to the fun that this feels like a meta-riff on half a dozen other 80s buddy movies with Reynolds and Branagh playfully swopping the roles of Maverick and Goose between them depending on the situation. All of the film scenes could have been merrily ripped out of a studio rolodex of set pieces and character riffs, that sort of stuff that has powered hundreds of films before.

There are a few riffs on the distrust and flaws in both systems either side of the Cold War. Nikolai may love America and be deeply ashamed of the brutality of his own system, but he’s fairly clear-eyed that both sides are willing to push a propaganda view of the other. Troy, a firm believer that America is generally flawless and the USSR unquestionably wrong, has his viewpoint challenged throughout – from discovering his government’s sense of right and wrong is far from perfect to finding not all Russians are brainwashed commie fanatics. The villain – a smug Marcin Dorociński doing a lot with not a lot on paper – plans to use events to shatter Gorbachev’s Glasnost, leaving Troy in the unusual position of helping the system he started the film convinced was terrible.

But really Mayday is all about having good fun. And that’s generally what I had when watching it. It’s all familiar and, aside from the novelty of seeing Branagh do it, there isn’t much in its comedy, action, car chase or fighter pilot antics you’ve not seen before. It skirts around more hard-hitting stuff, such as the fraught relationship between Nikolai and his daughter – largely resolved through an off-screen conversation. The most daring thing in it goes largely unspoken: Reynold’s character is a hotshot fighter pilot at least in his forties with no girlfriend or partner, expresses no sexual interest in any woman in the film and has a faultless gaydar – is Reynolds winkingly playing the full subtext of Top Gun here?

Mayday is assembled with real light comic energy, by people who really know what they doing, to put together a film that’s not pretentious, outstays its welcome or trying too hard to anything other than pop a grin on your face. Which you’d be hard-pressed not to have at some point.

Delightful fantasy action-adventure, well-made fun that leaves you with a warm glow inside

Director: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Cast: Chris Pine (Edgin Darvis), Michelle Rodriguez (Holga Kilgore), Regé-Jean Page (Xenk Yendar), Justice Smith (Simon Aumar), Sophia Lillis (Doric), Hugh Grant (Forge Fitzwilliam), Chloe Coleman (Kira Davis), Daisy Head (Sofina), Jason Wong (Dralas), Bradley Cooper (Marlamin)

I can’t be the only person who had low expectations heading into Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves. A swords-and-spells epic based on a game that is a by-word for geeky sadness? No wonder quite a few people said “count me out”. Well, they were wrong. D&D: HAT is a left-field treat, a bouncy adventure that is both loads of fun and also true to the spirit of the original game, full of content for fans while welcoming newcomers with open arms. This is the sort of treat that years from now people will remember as one of the best adventure films of its era.

Set in the world of Dungeons and Dragons – and don’t worry about the overwhelming backstory and cultures of this sprawling role play game, they only intrude when essential to the plot – our heroes are crooks-with-hearts-of-gold: former-Harper (a sort of heroic knight) turned thief Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and his best friend, barbarian warrior Holga (Michelle Rodriguez). They’ve been banged up in an arctic prison after a job-gone-wrong, escaping only to discover they were betrayed by oily conman Forge (Hugh Grant), who has used their incarceration to turn Darvis’ daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) against them. To win her back – and find an amulet that could bring Edgin’s late wife back from the dead – they assemble a team for a dangerous quest. One that could become even more dangerous, since Forge is in league with evil red witch Sofina (Daisy Head).

Perhaps the best thing about D&D: HAT is that it never takes itself too seriously, but also never laughs at or looks down on its source material. It sounds easier than it is: pulling off this sort of trick is extremely hard. Lean too far one way, and the jokes can suggest the cast and crew feel contemptuous about what they doing; go too serious, and the po-faced treatment of a parade of silly names and gobbledegook backstories practically invites the viewer to laugh at it. D&D: HAT though is bouncy entertainment that knows exactly when to ease off the gags for moments of drama, danger and emotion to really land. If you’d told me I’d get a bit choked up watching the end of a role-play game adaptation, I’d have said you were mad.

Pretty much every scene provides a little piece of comic business that delights, almost all of them perfectly executed by a director and cast whose affection for the original material shines out. Watching D&D: HAT you get the impression it must have been fun to make – and to successfully make that sense of fun be shared by the viewing audience is a real challenge to pull-off (take a look at the horrific Thor: Love and Thunder). But there is a real charm here that means emotional plots about loss of a partner, father-daughter divides, broken marriages, traumatised children and persecuted victims carry real impact because we invest in the characters.

That’s in large part due to some knock-out performances of comedy vigour. Chris Pine is the perfect lead for material like this: charming and fun to be around, witty without ever trying too hard (he’s the master here of the throwaway pun) but skilled enough to make us see the heart and yearning below the surface of a fast-talking trickster with a line for everything. He sparks wonderfully off the gruff Michelle Rodriguez, whose surliness hides depths. Fellow gang members Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis (both Americans juggling, it has to be said, very good accents) match them perfectly, turning potentially one-note characters into heartfelt heroes.

D&D: HAT also manages to be true to the spirit of playing games like this. Goldstein and Daley wisely avoided the obvious idea for a film of D&D (“people playing the game in the real world are sucked inside it!”) to instead create the wild, improvisational tone of the game where your decisions guide the narrative. Like gamers, our heroes are a disparate collection of people and species, all with different skills that complement and conflict, given a loosely-defined mission and responding to unexpected curveballs thrown at them by the invisible game runner (the scriptwriters and directors) that keeps them on their toes.

It also captures the way best laid plans in the game can go awry (a portal in a picture, foiled by a picture falling face down onto a stone floor) or how a sudden unlucky movement (or random dice roll) can lead to disaster – a moment perfectly captured where a laboriously detailed series of instructions about crossing a bridge are rendered moot when a character absent-mindedly places a rogue foot on the first stone and instantly collapses it. The characters have a constant feeling of flying by the seat of the pants, much like D&D players often do, and D&D: HAT wonderfully captures this improvisational wildness on screen.

It’s also a very entertaining spells-and-swords romp. There are some great set-pieces, not least a sequence in a sort of lava-filled mine (with the inevitable dragon – both dungeons and dragons make several appearances throughout) and a wild and crazy chase through a death-filled maze arena. The film throws in some inventive Ocean’s Eleven style trickery to get out of difficult situations. In all these moments the cast’s energy, likeability and blend of wit and heart makes each development sing and ensures even routine plots (Can wizard Simon overcome his self-doubt? Can persecuted animagus Doric learn to trust? Can Holga learn to be honest to the people she loves? Can Edgrin learn to put other people’s needs first?) become tender and engrossing plotlines.

It bounces along perfectly, all hugely entertainingly and with a real winning charm. It spices things up just right with some brilliantly engaging comic turns: no one does slimy insincerity better than Hugh Grant (hysterical), while Regé-Jean Page is a revelation as a hilariously earnest super-powered knight, the only character who really speaks like you sort-of-expect a po-faced D&D character to. Above all, it’s huge fun with a lot of heart. I’ve seen it twice and it knocks spots off almost every other blockbuster for the last couple of years, being purely enjoyable, clever, funny and sweet.