Ice Road: Vengeance (2025)

Movie · 2025 · Action, Thriller, Drama · 1h 53m · R · English

Curator score: 0.3/10 (33.1K ratings)

Overview

Big rig ice road driver Mike McCann travels to Nepal to scatter his late brother’s ashes on Mt. Everest. While on a packed tour bus traversing the deadly 12,000 ft. terrain of the infamous Road to the Sky, McCann and his mountain guide encounter a group of mercenaries and must fight to save themselves, the busload of innocent travelers, and the local villagers’ homeland.

Ratings

Director

Jonathan Hensleigh

Production

Code Entertainment, Shivhans Pictures, Envision Media Arts, The Solution

Cast

Liam Neeson, Fan Bingbing, Marcus Thomas, Grace O'Sullivan, Saksham Sharma, Bernard Curry, Geoff Morrell, Mahesh Jadu, Amelia Bishop, Shapoor Batliwalla, Monish Anand, Shivantha Wijesinha, CJ. Bloomfield, Michala Banas, Ira Chakraborty, Sarah Fitzgerald, Salim Fayad, Kaden Hartcher, Seth Kannof, Suvith Ravichandra

Where to watch

Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads

Curator Review

Verdict

A disposable, low-budget action sequel with a thin plot, shaky effects, and only intermittent B-movie amusement. It may work as background viewing for Liam Neeson completists or viewers who enjoy so-bad-it’s-kinda-fun action, but most audiences will find it generic and forgettable.

Best for

  • Liam Neeson action completists
  • Viewers who enjoy cheap, pulpy VOD thrillers
  • People in the mood for a few unintentional laughs
  • Fans of survival-action setups with a travelogue backdrop

Skip if

  • You want polished action choreography or convincing VFX
  • You need a coherent, character-driven thriller
  • You dislike predictable revenge plots
  • You’re hoping for a serious mountaineering or disaster film

Overview

Ice Road: Vengeance swaps the first film’s frozen highways for a Nepal-set bus siege on the Road to the Sky, but the change of scenery doesn’t solve the bigger problem: this is still a flimsy, generic action sequel built around a familiar aging-hero formula. The premise has enough inherent danger to sound promising, yet the execution is cheap-looking and often unintentionally comic.

Worth noting

Liam Neeson remains the main attraction, and there are a few sporadic moments where the movie briefly catches fire as a no-frills survival thriller. But the plotting is predictable, the villains are thinly sketched, and the visual effects undercut the tension more often than they build it.

Bottom line

For viewers who treat these late-career Neeson vehicles as a genre unto themselves, there’s a certain low-grade entertainment value here. For everyone else, it’s mostly a long ride to nowhere, with the occasional laugh arriving where suspense should be.

Top Letterboxd reviews

wersku (2★) · 248 likes

I loved that opening scene where Neeson screams like a maniac, because he’s once again in a movie that I bet he himself enjoyed being in. That bus CGI was hilarious, not to mention the gunfire👌. A very, very cheap-looking movie, and apparently this was a sequel, so I haven’t seen the first one and can’t compare it to this, which is probably a good thing, considering the outcome here. The characters motives are lost, and the acting is truly… more

Michael James (2★) · 201 likes

Had a hunch that it’s gonna be bad, yet chose to watch it for the 74 year old youngster Liam Neeson. The setting shifts from North Dakota to Nepal, from ice roads to world most dangerous roads around Mount Everest. It does offer some sporadically enjoyable actions moments, but the generically predictable storyline, rehashed plot elements add poor VFX makes it another tiring forgettable outing.

allain♡ · 168 likes

see this is why i mind my own business like god damn! also another uncle approved liam neeson film.

Xfaxe (1.5★) · 136 likes

I’m not sure this movie would have been saved even if I hade watched the prequel🤷🏽‍♂️

R SUDARSHAN (1★) · 124 likes

the least expectation i had for the ice road sequel is an actual ice road. but, they packed liam off to the himalayas with dust and cliffs. from that dumb move to the ridiculous story and cheap af execution, this movie’s a total dumpster fire, packed with unintentional laughs all over the place. yk vijay’s the reason starr just lost her dad, now her life’s too on the line, and he goes ‘you’ll see your father.’ wtf bruh, that’s not comforting,… more

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Topics

action thriller, survival, mercenaries, mountain setting, bus siege, revenge, VOD action, aging hero, Nepal, low-budget

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