Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ice Road: Vengeance’ on Netflix, One of the Goofier Generic Liam Neeson Action Movies

Where to Stream: Ice Road: Vengeance Powered by Reelgood The adventures of the world’s most combat-ready trucker continue in Ice Road: Vengeance (now on Netflix), the latest among an ever-growing pile of Generic Liam Neeson Action Movies. The Schindler’s List Oscar nominee has plied his filmography with a couple dozen of these mostly forgettable dad flicks since Taken was a $250 million hit in 2008, for what’s surely one of the steadiest paychecks in Hollywood. This new one is a sequel to 2021’s The Ice Road, which was sacrificed to Netflix in the thick of the Covid pandemic, and was a hit for the streamer; Neeson reunites with journeyman director Jonathan Hensleigh, and pairs with Chinese action star Fan Bingbing for another wrong place/wrong time/right guy story. And the question is, does it stand out among the pack? REVIEW SPOILER ALERT: It does not.  The Gist: Mike McCann (Neeson) is in therapy. Good for him. The events of The Ice Road were pretty upsetting, and I’ll have to check Wikipedia because I don’t remember that movie at all so hold on… OK, his dear brother Gurty died at the end of that one. And now, Gurty sits on Mike’s mantle, and within the context of a Generic Liam Neeson Action Movie, it’s absolutely not a logical leap to ponder the following question: How many times can one be hit in the face with an urn and remain conscious? I get the feeling we’ll have an answer for that one eventually, but not before Mike outmaneuvers a rocket-propelled grenade with a hunkajunk Mt. Everest tour bus that’s older than the Korean War. Because if there’s one thing Mike can do better than repeatedly hit someone in the face with an urn, it’s using his elite trucker skills to pilot an old clunker like it’s a stealth bomber. At this point you need some connective tissue so you know how Mike ends up not only in Nepal, but caught in a bloody land dispute between murderous capitalists and humble rural property owners. I know: Sheesh. Hasn’t the guy been through enough? He just wants to spread Gurty’s ashes at Mt. Everest, per the guy’s dying wish, which is a perfectly unreasonable request if you’re not Mike McCann, ice road trucker and skilled rock climber. We get a TANTALIZING scene in which Mike opens his laptop and types into the search bar and buys a plane ticket to Kathmandu, and before he awakens in the window seat with a perfect view of Everest, we’re privy to the local drama, where a capitalist cretin (Mahesh Jadu) with a scar on his face is met with resistance to his plan to build a dam, and starts offing the people standing in his way. Do the cops do anything about this jerk? My friends, this jerk doesn’t just have a cop in his pocket – he’s got cops in all of his pockets.  Meanwhile, Mike hires Dhani (Bingbing) to sherpa him to the summit of Everest. She’s ex-military. Just thought you should know that. Might come in handy in case a fight breaks out. They take a tour bus driven by a spicy Aussie, Spike (Geoff Morrell); their fellow travelers include an American human rights advocate (Bernard Curry), his surly phone-obsessed teenage daughter (Grace O’Sullivan) and Vijay (Saksham Sharma), notably the son of a guy who’s pushing back against the dam project. Mike’s butt has barely creased his seat before a couple of nasties board the bus with guns, and Dhani whispers to Mike, “Kidnappers in Nepal don’t leave witnesses.” Well then. Violence is justified! Mike and Dhani leap into action, and everything gets worse from there. Or better, if you’re a fan of moronic decisionmaking, goofy plot contrivances, weird little bits of comedy and janky action sequences spiced with cheapo CGI. Photo: Vertical What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I stand firmly by The Grey as the best Generic Liam Neeson Action Movie, because it’s also the only Liam Neeson Fights Wolves With His Damn Bare Hands movie to date. Performance Worth Watching: Neeson stops shy of rolling his eyes at this stuff, but he doesn’t, because he’s executed sillier material before, and is a total pro.  Memorable Dialogue: A fellow bus passenger notes Mike’s “American sarcasm,” and he corrects them: “It’s Irish sarcasm!” Sex and Skin: Nah. Our Take: So. Have we gotten to an ice road yet? Um. About that. It seems the driving-a-truck-over-an-ice-bridge plot probably doesn’t have the narrative versatility to inspire a second movie, so Ice Road COLON Vengeance waits half the run time to put an icy grade in front of mothertrucker Mike, who eyeballs it, assesses it – “Forty percent grade, iced over, hairpin turn at the bottom. Suicide!” – and inevitably conquers it as his highly specific skillset comes in handy once again. So technically, Ice Road: Vengeance features one ice road, and notably zero vengeance whatsoever, because this isn’t a cliched revenge plot, but a cliched humble-villagers-vs.-evil-developers story combined with a cliched achieve-closure-by-spreading-ashes story. Somebody contact the Better Business Bureau and file a truth in advertising claim! There’s a scene early in the film when a shitty TSA worker forces Mike to put Gurty’s ashes in a plastic container, so he ventures into a bathroom stall to transfer the cargo; he spills some on the rim of a toilet and brushes the ashes into the box and mumbles, “Sorry bro.” This is a clear indication that we shouldn’t take any of this seriously whatsoever, and in fact plays like Neeson’s rehearsal for The Naked Gun reboot. Why Hensleigh doesn’t just play Vengeance as a full-on comedy, I’m not sure. It likely would have yielded more entertainment, because as is, it’s a tonally wobbly, deeply silly mediocrity that falls eight minutes shy of (gasp, pant) two hours, with the occasional laugh cutting through the nonsense, which may or may not be intentional.  Our inability to discern tonal intent is a problem. And not our problem, but the movie’s. I guess it’s aware of its overall chintziness, from its lubberly dialogue to its inability to convincingly work around Neeson’s stunt double during the heavier-duty action sequences. Hensleigh’s screenplay contrives for Mike to MacGyver together the old clunker not once, but twice, and it certainly is convenient that the second time, he crashes the truck adjacent to a junkyard full of replacement parts. On second thought, maybe this is a comedy. Comedy is in the eye of the beholder, right? Too bad, because a funnier Ice Road: Vengeance is a better Ice Road: Vengeance.  Our Call: Ice Road: Vengeance is soooo great. What an amazing movie. It should win some Oscars. That’s Irish sarcasm. SKIP IT. John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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