Heads Of State

2025 Amazon Prime Studios

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 53min

Action ~ Comedy

Starring: John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jack Quaid, Paddy Considine, Stephen Root, and Carla Gugino.

Two Leaders. One Mission. No Diplomacy.

Heads of State, an action comedy about two world leaders who must put aside their differences when they become the targets of a powerful and ruthless foreign adversary, is streaming now exclusively on Prime Video. Despite their not-so-friendly and very public rivalry that jeopardizes their countries’ “special relationship,” UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) and U.S. President Will Derringer (John Cena) are begrudgingly forced to rely on the only people they can trust: each other. Allied with brilliant MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), they must go on the run and find a way to work together long enough to thwart a global conspiracy that threatens the entire free world.

The movie starts with The World’s Greatest Food Fight in Bruñol, Spain. The site of the annual overripe tomato festival which erupts into everyone throwing tomatoes at everyone, it is a big red mess. MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), is undercover as a news broadcaster covering the event along with her crew in the undercover News van. They are on the lookout for Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov and when they think they have spotted him, they quickly realize that it is a trap set up to eliminate the undercover team. The entire team is eliminated with the exception of MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). She holds her own in the gun battle but is shot in the chest in the end. Luckily she had on her bulletproof vest.

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) and U.S. President Will Derringer (John Cena) are meeting in London before they head to the NATO summit in Italy. President Derringer suggests that Prime Minister Clarke should join him on Air Force One so they could arrive together in Italy for the summit. He does and after they are airborne things take a turn for the worst. The Airplane staff has been infiltrated by assassins and another plane shows up and starts firing armed drones at Air Force One. The President and The Prime Minister manage to make it to the back of the plane and get the last two good parachutes with the help of a Secret Service Agent.

They jump out of the plane, deploy their parachutes and land in the Belarus countryside. The agent had instructed them to make their way to Warsaw, Poland where they have a CIA safe house. Now Prime Minister Clarke and President Derringer must make their way safely through the countryside to the safehouse and figure out what is going on and who is responsible for trying to kill them. They make it to the safehouse in Warsaw only to find out that the safehouse’s cover has been blown and whoever is responsible is storming the house trying to kill them. The CIA agent at the safehouse informs them that the bad guys are using tech to turn all the NATO countries against each other and that all hell is about to break loose.

There are tons of Puns, pun intended. It is hilarious comedy, non-stop action and political intrigue as they try to outwit the bad guys and stop them from tearing down the world order. Priyanka Chopra Jonas does an awesome job as Agent Bisset coming to their rescue and helping them thwart the evil plans. The witty banter between John Cena and Idris Alba is infectious, it is simply good clean fun. The Tomato fight scene at the beginning was a sight to see, as was the gun battle during it. The Air Force One scene was pretty intense and worth a watch just to see. Well done CGI. I liked it, a lot. Made me laugh, I really enjoyed and I think you will too. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Ice Road: Vengeance

2025 Vertical

Rated: Unrated

Length: 1 hr 52min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Thriller

Directed by: Jonathan Hensleigh

Starring: Liam Neeson, Fan Bingbing, Bernard Curry, Marcus Thomas, Salim Fayad and Geoff Morrell.

A fight for justice on the most dangerous road in the world.

Mike McCann (Liam Neesoon), an experienced ice-road trucker haunted by the loss of his brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas), embarks on a journey to Nepal to fulfill Gurty’s last wish: to have his ashes scattered atop Mount Everest. Partnering with Dhani (Fan Bingbing), a skilled local guide, Mike boards a tour bus alongside a cast of international travelers, including an American professor and his daughter, only for their plans to spiral into chaos when ruthless mercenaries hijack the bus. The mercenaries are in pursuit of Vijay, the son of a local opposition leader who stands in the way of a corrupt industrialist’s plan to build a hydroelectric dam and displace the village.

Trapped in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse along the perilous mountain roads, Mike and Dhani must use their wits and courage to protect the innocent passengers and the village itself. As they race against time, evading mercenaries, crooked officials, and sabotaged escape routes, Mike is forced to confront not only the threats around him but also his own guilt and grief. The climactic journey pushes Mike beyond his breaking point, ultimately allowing him to find closure and honor his brother’s memory in the shadow of the Himalayas.

So the only thing I can say about this is they should have called it Ice Road: Exploited. It is like they took the first movie and exploited it to make another movie completely different from the first. There is no Ice Road in this movie, it is completely based in Nepal although it wasn’t filmed there. It was filmed primarily in Walhalla, Victoria, Australia, where the filmmakers built a detailed Nepalese village set to stand in for scenes set in Nepal. Additional key filming locations included Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, Nepal, where several street-level and authentic city scenes were shot to enhance the film’s realism. Studio and indoor scenes, including those needing special effects to replicate Himalayan settings, were filmed at NantStudios (Docklands Studios) in Melbourne, Australia. Which explains the Australian Bus Driver in Nepal, I guess.

The only common ground in this was Mike taking Gurty’s ashes to Mt. Everest. There were flashbacks to Mike and Gurty before Gurty’s time in Afghanistan where he suffered a head injury, that might have been good to see in the first movie Ice Road. Beyond that it was Liam Neeson being the Taken action star on a tourist bus in Nepal. Then he was playing McGyver pulling bus parts off the side of a mountain like it was an everyday occurrence. That aspect of the movie felt like a cheap B-movie, a poor imitation of some of Liam’s other action flicks. And I have a hard time seeing the Mike McCann Ice Road Trucker being a rock climber, just don’t see it. And then at the end, there is a hint of a romance between Liam and Fan. I definitely wasn’t feeling that at all, they should have steered clear of that little plot twist.

I think they should have gone in a different direction. Maybe Mike and Tantoo should have teamed up to be an Ace Ice Road trucking company and had some adventures that would have made Gurty proud. That would have been a better story and movie. This one is a dog, it never should have happened, easily forgotten on it’s own and has nothing to do with the first one’s “Ice Road”. If you haven’t seen Ice Road, watch that movie and skip this one Ice Road: Vengeance. If you have seen Ice Road watch it again if you liked it, but skip this one Ice Road: Vengeance.

Ice Road (The Ice Road)

Ice Road (The Ice Road)

2021 Netflix

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 43min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Thriller

Directed by: Jonathan Hensleigh

Starring: Liam Neeson, Laurence Fishburne, Benjamin Walker, Amber Midthunder, Marcus Thomas, Holt McCallany, Martin Sensmeier, Matt McCoy, and Matt Salinger.

This Mission Is On Thin Ice

Mike McCann (Liam Neeson) is a Big Rig Driver hauling semi-trailers for The Nordak Trucking Company in Pembina, North Dakota. As he pulls in and gets out of a truck he hears his brother inside a garage being harassed by a couple of other truck drivers. His brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas) is an ace mechanic but suffers from PTSD and Aphasia from serving in The Iraq War. The truckers are calling him names and tossing his coffee thermos to each other keeping it from Gurty who is frantically trying to get it from them. Mike goes into the garage and catches the thermos mid-toss and reprimands the drivers for harassing his mentally challenged brother. One of the drivers calls him retard and Mike tells him,” I told you not to ever call him that!”. Then the driver looks at Mike at says, “RETARD!”. Mike promptly punches the man cold and he falls on the ground. Mike and Gurty are instantly fired from their jobs.

At the Katka Diamond Mine in Northern Manitoba, the miners have been instructed by the management to turn off their methane sensors in the mine in exchange for $100 dollars a month extra in their paychecks, so as to speed up production. The problem with that is as they are drilling they won’t know if they hit a methane pocket, which is extremely dangerous and could cause a huge explosion. And that’s exactly what happens and collapses the mine around 26 miners trapping them deep underground. The only way to save them is to cap the wellhead so they can safely extract the miners, but they need the equipment ASAP and the only way to get it there in time to save the miners is by trucking it across the already closed and starting to thaw Ice Road. A very risky mission, so risky they are going to be sending three different semi stuck and trailers, each equipped with the well head and supplies they need to cap the well, so that at least one will make it if two fail.

Mike hears about the mission needing drivers and decides, given the hefty payout, that the risk is worth it. He and Gurty head to Winnipeg to apply for the mission. Jim Goldenrod (Laurence Fishburne) has decided to organize the mission and is recruiting drivers for the job. He bails out Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), who is in jail for protesting, a Native American activist and the best Ice Road Trucker that Jim knows. When Jim gets back to the office with Tantoo he looks at Mike and Gurty and considers them for the risky Ice Road Run. After he watches Gurty take out a rocker arm assembly on an engine in no time at all, he tells them they are hired for the mission. Jim is going to drive one of the rigs himself, Mike and Gurty will drive the second and Tantoo the third rig. Tantoo’s brother works in the mine so the mission is personal for her, he is one of the trapped miners. Accompanying Tantoo is Tom Varnay (Benjamin Walker), an Insurance Risk assessor for The Katka Diamond Mine.

As the three head off onto the long Ice road and the treacherous mission running against the clock and the thawing ice, we find out that Tom Varnay has other ideas about any of the three rigs making it to The Katka Mine. The race is on against the elements, the ice, and the risk assessor sent by the management of the mine that don’t want the mission to succeed. It is a familiar Liam Neeson Action movie, the underdog called to action to make things right, thwart the bad guys and succeed in his mission. He does not disappoint in this role, it is exactly what you expect of the Taken star. This time as a trucker making his way across the perilous Ice Roads of Northern Canada. He plays the part well, as does Laurence Fishburn. I really liked Amber Midthunder in this as the gritty Native American girl not afraid of the white man. Marcus Thomas as Gurty was loveable, you felt for the guy trying to help his brother achieve success on the run and battling his disabilities

So while it is a bit predictable, it is also a fun ride full of action and adventure. There are definitely some edge of your seat moments as the danger escalates. I have seen this a few times and watched it again before I watch the sequel Ice Road: Vengeancetonight on Amazon Prime. I watched Wind River again a few nights ago and as I was watching this last night I thought one of the miners looked familiar. He was in Wind River too. Martin Sensmeier played Tantoo’s brother Cody Mantooth, one of the miners trapped in the mine in this and Chip, Natalie’s brother in Wind River.

The Ice Road is s good movie if you haven’t seen it. Liam Neeson doing what he does best on The Ice Road. Stay tuned for the sequel review tomorrow…..Ice Road: Vengeance!

Ice Road: Vengeance

Wind River

28 Years Later

2025 Sony Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 55min

Drama ~ Horror ~ Post-Apocalyptic ~ Sci-Fi ~ Thriller

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Starring: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, and Ralph Fiennes.

Time Didn’t Heal Anything….

28 Years Later plunges viewers back into the bleak aftermath of the Rage Virus outbreak, delivering an intense blend of survival horror, emotional depth, and chilling philosophy. Streaming on Netflix, Danny Boyle’s latest horror chapter explores human fragility and monstrous transformation nearly three decades after the initial pandemic.

The story centers on a fortified community on the island of Lindisfarne, cut off from the mainland by a causeway. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) prepares his son Spike (Alfie Williams in his Feature Film Debut) for a coming-of-age hunting ritual, teaching him to hunt infected with bow and arrow. Their precarious existence shatters when Spike’s mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), falls mysteriously ill. Spike escapes to the mainland with her, determined to find Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a reclusive doctor known for his troubling fixation on death.

The infected are more terrifying and evolved, exemplified by Samson, an Alpha infected with increased strength and cunning who leads vicious packs of infecteds. The film’s hunting sequences are taut and brutal, focusing on survival amid fast, relentless infected terrorizing the once-familiar landscape.

Dr. Kelson embodies the film’s somber philosophical heart. Living among the dead, he has constructed a sinister Bone Temple: a towering, macabre monument made from collected skulls and bones, including those of infected victims and fallen survivors. This shrine serves as a memento mori, a reminder of death’s permanence and humanity’s mortality. Kelson’s obsession with the Bone Temple reflects his struggle to find meaning in devastation, a fixation cloaked in ritual and melancholia.

The film opens with a 2002 scene featuring young Jimmy Crystal, a boy fleeing the initial chaos of the Rage outbreak alongside his father, a priest. His father gifts him a crucifix necklace and speaks of judgment day, embedding faith and destiny into the boy’s psyche. The movie’s closing scenes reveal Jimmy as an adult and charismatic cult leader, Sir Jimmy Crystal, whose followers share his name and mimic his appearance. This powerful connection between the innocent boy at the start and the manipulative cult figure at the end deepens the film’s exploration of trauma, faith, and power in a broken world. Sir Jimmy Crystal was reportedly inspired by the controversial British TV personality and charity fundraiser Jimmy Savile, who, after his death in 2011, was revealed to have been a prolific sexual predator.

Throughout, 28 Years Later weaves harrowing survival with emotional storytelling, including the pregnant infected woman who gives birth amid chaos, a stark metaphor for hope and life’s persistence. The dire truths of illness, betrayal, and loss underscore Spike’s journey from boyhood into brutal adulthood, navigating a savage world where faith itself is weaponized.

28 Years Later and its sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple were filmed back-to-back during the summer of 2024, allowing for a seamless continuation of the story with consistent casting and tone. The Bone Temple, directed by Nia DaCosta with a screenplay by Alex Garland, is set to release on January 16, 2026. The sequel picks up where the first film leaves off, deepening the story of Spike’s induction into Sir Jimmy Crystal’s violent cult and Dr. Kelson’s dark discoveries. Cillian Murphy reprises his role from the original 28 Days Later as Jim, making a pivotal return in the ending of The Bone Temple, which sets up the highly anticipated third film in the trilogy, which is still in development.

Why stream: With a gripping storyline, fearsome new infected, and haunting meditations on death and belief through Dr. Kelson’s Bone Temple and Jimmy’s rise, 28 Years Later offers a fresh, profound evolution of Boyle’s groundbreaking horror saga. And if you’ve come this far on the journey, watching 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, you have to watch this one!

28 Days Later

28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later

2007 20th Century Fox

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 39min

Drama ~ Horror ~ Post-Apocalyptic ~ Sci-Fi ~ Thriller

Directed by: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Starring: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Imogen Poots and Idris Elba.

The Days Turn Into Weeks….

Following the events of 28 Days Later we are introduced to Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) who are hiding out in a farmhouse with an older couple and a young woman. Just as in the first movie, they are running low on food and supplies, and spend their time fortifying the farmhouse against the infected. suddenly there is pounding on the door and a young boy screams to be let in. They begrudgingly comply but soon realize that he is being chased by a horde of the infected. They soon overrun the farmhouse and Don and Alice get trapped upstairs with the young boy. As they go into another bedroom to escape there is already an infected in the room and has come between Alice and the child on one side and Don just inside the bathroom. Realizing that Alice and the child are doomed, Don self-preservation kicks in he escapes out onto the roof, down onto the ground and makes a run for the boat in the river, leaving Alice to her fate.

28 weeks later, the Rage Virus outbreak has largely ended due to the starvation of the infected. NATO forces, led by the U.S. military, have taken control of London and established a heavily guarded “safe zone” called District One on the Isle of Dogs. Survivors, including Don and Alice’s children Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton)who were abroad during the outbreak, are allowed to return and live under military protection. Don manages one of the apartment buildings in the safe zone, but lies to his children about abandoning their mother.

Tammy and Andy sneak out of District One to visit their old family home in hopes of retrieving personal items. There, Andy discovers Alice alive but in a delirious state. Military personnel capture Alice and bring her back to the safe zone where she is quarantined and tested by Medical Officer Scarlet (Rose Byrne). She is found to be an asymptomatic carrier of the Rage Virus, she carries the virus without symptoms but can infect others through her blood or saliva. Don secretly visits Alice, pleading for forgiveness. After a kiss, Don is infected and goes on a brutal rampage, killing Alice and sparking a rapid outbreak within the safe zone.

Scarlet rescues Tammy and Andy, believing the children may hold genetic immunity that could lead to a cure. As the infection spreads, Military Commander Stone (Idris Elba) orders mass executions in a desperate attempt to contain it. Sergeant Doyle(Jeremy Renner) refuses to comply and helps the small group, including Tammy, Andy, Scarlet, and another survivor, Sam, flee. They survive the chaos and firebombing of District One, though Don pursues them relentlessly.

In the dramatic finale, Tammy, Andy, and Scarlet reach Wembley Stadium, where helicopter pilot Flynn reluctantly flies them across the English Channel to France. However, Andy’s status as an asymptomatic carrier means the virus has now spread beyond Britain, a chilling revelation as infected emerge in Paris near the Eiffel Tower.

28 Weeks Later delivers a gripping mix of family drama and relentless horror, painting a bleak picture of survival and human frailty amid the breakdown of society. It was interesting to go back and see Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Imogen Poots and Idris Elba 18 years ago. Just out of curiosity I went back and looked at what were their first movies:

Rose Byrne ~ Dallas Doll (1994). This was her 17th movie.
Jeremy Renner ~ National Lampoon’s Senior Trip (1995). This was his 12th movie.
Imogen Poots ~ V For Vendetta ~ (2005). This was her 2nd movie!
Idris Alba ~ Beautiful Mother (1999). This was his 8th Movie.

It is just as terrifying and horrific as the first with a Family’s drama over coping with the outbreak thrown in and it leaves us guessing as to what happens next, 28 years Later. And that’s what we are watching on Netflix tonight. Be back tomorrow with a review of 28 Years Later!