{"id":13161,"date":"2025-10-01T15:38:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13161"},"modified":"2025-10-01T15:38:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:38:27","slug":"ice-road-vengeance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/10\/01\/ice-road-vengeance\/","title":{"rendered":"Ice Road: Vengeance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Ice Road: Vengeance<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vertical\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated TV-14 (intense action and violence, torture, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Yezerski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tom Stern \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Release date: June 27, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Liam Neeson, Fan Bingbing, Marcus Thomas, Grace O\u2019Sullivan, Saksham Sharma, Bernard Curry, Geoff Morrell, Mahesh Jadu, Amelia Bishop, Shapoor Batliwalla, Monish Anand, Shivantha Wijesinha, CJ Bloomfield, Michaela Banas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0What they say about sequels not being equals is often but not always true. Once in a blue moon, we get one that\u2019s better than the original (e.g. The Godfather Part II, Superman II, Aliens). Other times, we get one that more or less measures up to the first movie. That\u2019s the case with Ice Road: Vengeance<\/strong>, a decent sequel to the 2021 Liam Neeson actioner The Ice Road, an action-oriented take on Henri-George Clouzot\u2019s The Wages of Fear (1953). It\u2019s by no means a classic, but it makes for a passable action flick. I feel the same about the sequel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jonathan Hensleigh, returning as writer and director, puts Neeson in a Cliffhanger\/Under Siege 2 situation in Ice Road: Vengeance<\/strong>. Okay, so no points for originality. Who cares? It\u2019s kind of fun and that\u2019s what really counts, right? The story pits veteran trucker Mike McCann against a team of armed baddies in Nepal. He\u2019s gone there to scatter his dead brother\u2019s ashes on Mt. Everest. His guide, a plucky type named Dhani (Bingbing, The 355), takes him to his destination on a tour bus called \u201cThe Kiwi Express\u201d. En route, a couple of mercenaries hijack the bus with the intention of kidnapping a young man named Vijay (Sharma). Naturally, Mike intervenes and foils the crime. What is it they say about out of the pan and into the fire?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mike\u2019s heroic actions put him in the crosshairs of the main villain Rudra Yash (Jadu, The Witcher), a corporate creep in charge of a dam construction project that would negatively affect the people of Kodari. Most of the villagers oppose the project, the most vocal being Ganesh (Batliwalla), the one leading the charge against the company behind it. Vijay is his son. As one would expect, Rudra keeps coming after Vijay with only Mike and a few others to stop him and his goon squad.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mike\u2019s group includes Dhani, a fierce fighter as well as an expert climber; American professor Myers (Curry, Home and Away); his spoiled teen daughter Starr (O\u2019Sullivan, Neighbours) and Aussie bus driver Spike (Morrell, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). They are a force to be reckoned with under the leadership of a total tough guy like Mike.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s been a lot of hate directed at Ice Road: Vengeance<\/strong>, but it isn\u2019t deserved. It\u2019s not that bad a movie if you go in knowing what to expect. It\u2019s a silly action flick meant to be enjoyed at a weekend matinee. It\u2019s goofier than its predecessor, but I don\u2019t recall anybody asking for realism. There\u2019s no better way to ruin an action movie than to try and inject realism into it. These things are inherently silly. Look no further than Die Hard (1988). It\u2019s the opposite of realistic. Hensleigh understands this and follows suit with these Ice Road films.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hensleigh does do something unexpected in Ice Road: Vengeance<\/strong>. He tries to add depth to Neeson\u2019s character. As the movie opens, we learn that Mike is suffering from survivor\u2019s guilt in the wake of his brother\u2019s death in the first. He engages in risky behavior like free-solo climbing a la Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 2 (2000). Going to Mt. Everest to fulfill his brother\u2019s wishes is therapeutic. Neeson, pro that he is, makes it work. Thankfully, he\u2019s more about action than self-healing. He kicks some serious ass here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bingbing makes a great sidekick. This is a woman not to be underestimated. She\u2019s as game as Mark in taking down the bad guys. She also has a soft side in how she teaches Starr to fight. In the role, O\u2019Sullivan does okay. She\u2019s a typical American teen girl. You should see the look on her face when one of the mercs throws her phone out the window. Morrell adds comic relief as the bus driver who might very well be kin to Crocodile Dundee. Jadu makes a reasonably effective villain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m not going to attempt to convince you that Ice Road: Vengeance<\/strong> is high art. It\u2019s a Liam Neeson actioner. That says it all right there. It\u2019s the same as saying \u201cit\u2019s a Charles Bronson movie\u201d. You know exactly what to expect. It has plenty of well-executed action scenes including a chase near the end that involves the heroes crossing a gorge that has no bridge. In the end, it gives action junkies exactly what they want. It\u2019s a little creaky at times, but it still works.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ice Road: Vengeance (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vertical\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated TV-14 (intense action and violence, torture, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jonathan Hensleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Yezerski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tom Stern \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Release date: June 27, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Liam Neeson, Fan Bingbing, Marcus Thomas, Grace O\u2019Sullivan, Saksham Sharma, Bernard Curry, Geoff Morrell, Mahesh Jadu, Amelia Bishop, Shapoor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Ice-Road-Vengeance-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13165,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13161\/revisions\/13165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}