When an explosion traps 26 miners underground at a remote diamond mine in Canada, a risky plan is put together to deliver the equipment needed for the rescue effort. A team of ice road truckers must drive the equipment to the mine along an ice road, and they have only thirty hours before the miners run out of air. But given that it's April, there's a chance that the ice may not be thick enough to hold the rigs and their cargo.
Do you ever get the feeling that Liam Neeson enjoys working in really cold environments? The Grey, Cold Pursuit, and now The Ice Road. This would certainly suggest he isn't averse to the idea, anyway. But if you're thinking that this simply sounds like Ice Road Truckers the movie, you're only half right. As an action/thriller, however, The Ice Road never really manages to be all that thrilling, even with Liam Neeson and Laurence Fishburne headlining. A movie about a team of truckers battling the elements should make for quite a tense and exciting watch - probably why the show is so popular. Instead, what begins with a disaster and a time sensitive rescue mission, quickly devolves into a half-hearted conspiracy story involving corporate greed. One which is more about fighting with evil company men than it is about the challenges of driving in such a harsh environment.
At which point things start to get rather predictable. There are a few exciting scenes involving cracking ice, horrible weather and some very interesting driving. All of which is intercut with some beautiful shots of the unforgiving landscape as the three trucks drive along that lonely road. Which at least demonstrates how dangerous this job can be. It's just not as exciting as it should be, and the mediocre battles with the mining company men do nothing to solve this. The lacklustre CGI doesn't exactly make Mother Nature's assaults on the convoy look real either, and a lot of the time there's no real sense of peril in what's going on. That said, some of the techniques the drivers use to get themselves out of all manner of trouble are nothing short of ingenious, but if that's what you're interested in, you should probably stick with Ice Road Truckers.
An ok action movie that doesn't exactly thrill. If you're interested in ice road trucking, watch Ice Road Truckers instead.
4/10
The Ice Road is available to watch on Amazon Prime.
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