Irish actor Liam Neeson wins the Versatility Award this week, starring in “The Naked Gun” in theaters and in the streaming “Ice Road: Vengeance,” a formulaic sequel to the 2021 action thriller from writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh.

This time, grief-stricken, big rig driver Mike McCann (Neeson) embarks on a sad journey to honor his recently deceased younger brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas). Since they’d often talked about climbing Mount Everest together, Mike decides that’s where he’s going to scatter Gurty’s ashes.

Arriving in Nepal, Mike is met by an experienced mountain guide, Dhani Yangchen (Bingbing Fan), and they board a Kathmandu tour bus – dubbed “the Kiwi Express” – to traverse the 12,000 ft. terrain of the infamous Road to the Sky en route to the base camp.

Their garrulous Australian driver Spike (Geoff Morrell) knows the route well and cheerily greets them along with other trekkers, including American human rights Professor Myers (Bernard Curry) with his unenthusiastic, cellphone-addicted teenage daughter Starr (Grace O’Sullivan).

Problem is: a group of nasty kidnappers jump aboard. They’re after a local resident, Vijay Rai (Saksham Sharma), whose prominent Nepalese family is stubbornly holding on to their ancestral land on which corrupt politicians want to build a huge hydroelectric dam that would destroy a nearby village.

When the bad guys try to hijack the tour bus, fighting erupts and Spike is injured, meaning Mike must take the wheel, careening around treacherous mountain curves to reach the Annapurna Highlands where Vijay’s grandfather is hiding. 

While Chinese star Bingbing Fan is a fierce kickass foil for grizzled Neeson, this isn’t really a sequel – and the high touted ‘ice’ is in short supply, even in the Himalayas.

FYI: Much filming took place in Walhalla, Australia, with the town disguised to look Nepalese.

On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ice Road: Vengeance” skids in with a slippery, if forgettable 5, available to rent on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.