Ice Road: Vengeance

This is the type of stuff that made all the rounds of Cinemax, HBO, Showtime... and the second tier movie theaters back in the 80's. The early to mid 80's really... and I absloutely ate them up. Yes they were terrible... you don't realize just how bad until you try and rewatch them as an adult.

Bad plots, some mediocre acting and dialogue... completely unreal situations. It has it all! And just like back then, I enjoyed it for the most part.

I would never bother to watch it again, it really doesn't have anything that would get me to do that. Back when I was a teen, they just showed the same movies multiple times a week... you watched out of sheer boredom at nothing else being available.

They really pushed the "bad " French woman... all 5'1" of her! She reminded me of "Grumpy Cat" on the internet! I have no problem believing a woman can be dangerous, but not weighing 90 lbs and fighting a 6'4" 220lb guy...even if he is ancient.

At this point in his career, Liam Neeson seems determined to keep his reputation as the relentless action hero intact even if the snow is thicker than the plot. Ice Road Vengeance rides on the same old tires: a few gunshots, a rugged truck, and Neeson doing what he does best growling lines and outrunning death despite looking visibly exhausted. The film tries to channel Taken-style grit into a frozen landscape, but unfortunately, what it delivers is mostly cold air. There's minimal emotional depth, barely-there suspense, and a plot that feels recycled from every other Neeson thriller of the past decade. It's not entirely unwatchable-Neeson's fans might still find some icy charm-but it's hard to shake the feeling that this road should've been left untrodden. A generous 4/10 feels fair, mainly out of respect for Neeson's enduring commitment to grit.

At this point, Liam Neeson's situationship with perilous situations has become a tiresome actioner trope. All the characters, except for Neeson's and Bingbing Fan's, are directly imported from the generic action template guidebook. This could've been tagged a Taken movie, and it wouldn't be any different. And for a film titled "Ice Road," there were hardly any icy roads. I forgot almost everything about the first film except for the name, Neeson's character, and the poster.. so I didn't even realize that the protagonist's brother was dead (lol!). Also, I read that most of this was shot in Australia and not Nepal, which makes it matter even less. Can Liam Neeson do less of these and more of In the Land of Saints and Sinners types with better character depth?

This is beyond woeful. Don't really even know where to start.

Acting - beyond terrible for most of them. The best were actually the Nepalese. What ever has happened to Liam Neeson???

Plot - very very thin. Dispute about building a dam in mountainous Nepal.

EXCEPT they're not in Nepal. Not even close. They're in Victoria Australia, and the scenery looks absolutely nothing like Nepal. The scenes "filmed in" Nepal look like they used a motion set from the 60s, with the actors bumping up and down in a car while the scenery moves behind them.

The stunts and action scenes were dreadful.

None of it made any sense.

There's almost no reason to watch this. Unless you really don't have anything to do for 2 hours. Keep your expectations really really low, and you'll still be disappointed.

Well, to start positively: This movie offers nice action with buses, the scenery of Nepal is beautiful, and it has a well-picked and capable cast with Liam Neeson as the lead, and I like Liam Neeson; always did.

But that is not enough to call this a good movie. Everything is just a vehicle for action. That may have worked twenty years ago, but nowadays that's not enough. It's just too superficial and predictable. The character development and their relationships have too little space to allow me to build up any attachment whatsoever. There are some interesting side characters with potential, but they all get killed way too soon. And I'm not talking about the antagonists, which have no depth at all.

So all that remains is the action. It's solid but not overwhelming. There are quite some logic issues that spoil the fun, and the editing is way too fast-paced, sometimes confusing.

This is a routinely staged action movie with superficial characters, with questionable editing and without any surprises.