Ryan Reynolds Sends a Mayday For His Career

September 2026

 

Well... it looks like Ryan Reynolds is serving time in Purgatory...

 

As he has been reduced to making a straight-to-streaming feature... Mayday....

 

Which is not what one would expect for someone...

Who was the second highest paid film star in 2024...

Coming in behind only Dwayne Johnson...

 

So we are not talking about exceptional thespians here...

But rather guys who can bring in an audience...

 

And Reynolds had carved out a nice career for himself in Superhero flicks...

With Deadpool and Wolverine as one of the few films in that genre that I actually enjoyed...

 

But now he is on Apple TV...

Co-starring with Kenneth Branagh...

 

Who, unfortunately for Reynolds...

 

Can actually act...

 

And Reynolds... wisely...

Until now...

Has largely stayed away from people like that...

 

Because he is more a persona...

Than someone you might find doing Hamlet on the West End...

 

But this beady-eyed Canadian King of Snark...

Who carefully leavened his sarcasm with enough self-deprecating humor...

To build a career as a wisecracking superhero...

 

Was part of a Hollywood power couple...

Who decided to throw their weight around...

And stomp all over a little guy, Justin Baldoni...

 

Who had the temerity to try and direct a movie...It Ends With Us

Starring Reynolds’ wife...

 

The “I’m Blake Lively ... and You’re Not”

Queen of Gossip Girl...

 

Without letting them actually run the show...

 

Which kind of blew up their brand...

So now Reynolds has no major films on tap...

 

Which makes Mayday look like an effort by “Marvel Jesus” to remind everyone..

Why they liked watching him in the first place...

 

And he does have comic timing down...

But this vehicle is unlikely to revive his career...

 

Mayday is a film about a Top Gun Maverick-like fighter pilot...

Who starts out all gung- ho, hoorah for his country...

Until he is shot down over Russia in 1987...

Where he encounters an Ex-KGB agent, played by Branagh...

Who helps him escape...

 

But this all has a Maxwell Smart vibe...

There is an attack by a fountain pen...

An escape attempt using a truck carrying a nuclear missile...

Fight scenes that look like they belong in a comic book...

And plot lines that score off the chart on the implausible scale...

 

But Mayday is not camp...

 

Because it takes itself a little too seriously...

With Reynolds’ character being schooled by the KGB agent ...

About how his country has been lying to him...

 

But ... the KGB agent is childishly naïve at the start of the film...

 

Until he isn’t...

 

So none of this works...

 

And Reynolds’ efforts at clever repartee get swallowed every time Branagh is in a scene...

Because Ken is just so much better than Reynolds... at everything...

 

So you start to wonder watching this movie...

 

How did this Reynolds guy get so big in the first place?

 

Which is an audience reaction that is unlikely to revive a career...

 

So even though the title of this film is very on point...

About what the Reynolds’ brand needs right now...

 

It’s not good enough to get enough buzz...

To undo the damage he and his wife have done to their careers...

 

So maybe they just should have let Baldoni make his movie...

His way...

And then let him get the credit for its success....

 

But this power couple just couldn’t resist the flex...

 

So now Reynolds is streaming...

And it doesn’t look like...

He will be looking down on us from the big screen.....

 

Anytime soon.....

 

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