Ah, Liam Neeson. What a lad. He's so very good at playing, well, Liam Neeson. But don't get me wrong here: I love a Neeson movie. There have been some great ones on the best streaming services, too, such as The Marksman.
But I couldn't say the same about 2021's The Ice Road, which I really didn't enjoy. And now, as if out of nowhere, the sequel has appeared on Amazon Prime Video, where it's been available to stream since 3 September.
Ice Road: Vengeance doesn't have quite so much actual ice to deal with from the off, given that it's based in Nepal. What's certainly been frosty, however, is its reception: with a Rotten Tomatoes score that's a paltry 18%.
As you can see from the trailer, embedded above, Vengeance's apparent Nepal setting never looks quite real, with odd visual effects that don't look right on a phone, let alone one of the best TVs at a larger scale.
Even more peculiar is that The Ice Road original featured on Netflix. Its sequel made an immediate transplant to video-on-demand and now it's on Amazon Prime instead. As if nobody really ever wanted this movie. Oh dear.
"'Ice Road: Vengeance' features zero ice roads. In fact, writer-director Jonathan Hensleigh’s follow-up barely stands apart from any of the other baker’s dozen punch-em-ups Neeson has led in the last decade," reads one critics review on Rotten Tomatoes.
As I say, no disrespect to Neeson, who's a veteran in this game. But, given The Ice Road, was so poorly received – with its 30% audience rating – it's not as though an unnecessary sequel was likely to reset people's viewpoint.
Amazon Prime Video has been doing some questionable things of late, too, such as increasing the volume of ads its serving to its paying customers. It's decreased how much I use the service, and with low-quality additions being added, I continue to turn to Paramount+ and others.
Still, if you can't resist a slice of Neeson action, then Ice Road: Vengeance could be your perfect nonsensical weekend movie. I'll be swerving it to tune into Netflix's Wednesday season two instead, though.
