Glaciers, Guns, and Geriatrics: The Ice Road Saga Continues in Ice Road: Vengeance (2025)

Mike travels to Nepal to scatter his late brother's ashes on Mt. Everest. When Mike and his mountain guide encounter mercenaries on a tour bus, they are forced to fight to save themselves, the passengers, and the local villagers' homeland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6lJh9ADfbQ

Look, I don’t know who keeps greenlighting these movies where Liam Neeson turns into a senior-citizen action figure with a particular set of skills - and a titanium hip - but bless them for it. Ice Road Vengeance is the cinematic equivalent of putting winter tires on a Rascal scooter and then driving it off a cliff in the Himalayas. And somehow… I didn’t hate it.

This time around, Liam is back as Mike McCann, the ice road trucker with the personality of a diesel engine and the resilience of an old leather couch. He's traded the Arctic roads for the “Road to the Sky” in Nepal because nothing says "sacred emotional closure" like hauling your dead brother’s ashes to the slopes of Mount Everest. You know, just a light, healing stroll up the tallest death trap on Earth. At this point, Mike’s idea of “grieving” involves international travel, large vehicles, and a guaranteed body count.

Joining him is Bingbing Fan, playing Dhani - the mountain guide who seems to know every shortcut, altitude sickness remedy, and guerrilla warfare tactic on either side of the Himalayas. I gotta say, Bingbing has this calm, collected vibe, like if you asked Siri to navigate you through a firefight. She’s the real backbone of the story, despite Liam doing his best “I’m too old for this cliffhanger” routine throughout.

Now, we also have Michala Banas popping in as a mercenary leader who apparently graduated from the Zoolander School of Menacing Faces. I’ve seen toddlers fake tougher looks while refusing to eat broccoli. Every time she squinted or curled her lip, I thought she was either trying to remember her line or passing a kidney stone.

Plot-wise, it’s straightforward enough to be printed on the back of a granola bar: Mike’s on a spiritual mission to honor his brother. Mercenaries show up. Guns go off. Buses crash. Villagers are threatened. Mike turns into Nepalese MacGyver, and somehow we’re all expected to believe a 72-year-old man is dodging bullets, scaling rock walls, and fighting people half his age without throwing out a disc.

Let’s pause there. I know Liam Neeson’s tough. He’s Taken tough. But watching him scamper up mountain paths like he’s auditioning for the next Ninja Warrior made me question reality. I kept waiting for someone to hand him an oxygen mask or a defibrillator. Instead, he’s single-handedly outsmarting mercs with military-grade gear, while I get winded watching people do jumping jacks on YouTube. Suspension of disbelief? Try launching it into orbit.

And while we’re airing snow-dusted grievances: the gunplay. Oh boy. The muzzle flashes in this thing look like they were slapped on in MS Paint. Every firefight has the production value of a middle-school AV club trying to shoot a Rambo remake. There’s one scene where a guy gets shot, and I swear the squib went off three seconds before the trigger was pulled. I’ve seen more convincing effects in laser tag.

But hey, it’s not all iced-over potholes. The scenery is top shelf. I mean, say what you want about the plot, but this thing is basically a travel brochure with explosions. Between Walhalla, Australia standing in for the Nepalese countryside, and actual Himalayan backdrops peppered in via Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, this movie is a stunning geography lesson with a body count. I half expected David Attenborough to narrate the bus ride.

Which leads me to my theory: this movie only exists so Liam Neeson and the crew could get a paid vacation. Think about it. Beautiful locations, minimal script complexity, and all the stunt work outsourced to overworked doubles and CGI interns. It’s Eat Pray Love, but with diesel engines and land mines.

And of course, Mike becomes MacGyver with a torque wrench. He’s hotwiring bulldozers, rigging improvised bombs, and using ropes in ways even Boy Scouts would raise an eyebrow at. I couldn’t tell if I was watching Ice Road: Vengeance or Liam Neeson’s Retirement Home Mythbusters.

Now let’s be honest: this ain’t Shakespeare in a parka. It’s action comfort food. A little dumb. A little silly. A little inspiring if you're a fan of long-haul truckers who find themselves in life-threatening situations every 18 months. But despite the absurdities, I still kind of enjoyed the ride. Probably because Neeson, like a weathered Scotch, just works. He knows what movie he’s in, and he leans into it like a snowplow in fourth gear.

So what’s the final word?

Ice Road Vengeance is a scenic, snow-blasted, logic-defying throwback to when movies didn’t need to make sense—as long as someone punched a mercenary in the face. It’s got some cool moments, stunning vistas, and Liam Neeson trying his best not to throw out his back.

Final Verdict: 5.8/10

Not terrible, not great. Call it Taken meets National Geographic, but with worse aim.