This is another Liam Neeson action flick, but it’s a little different than the others.  Filmed three years ago but just released this year Cold Storage is science fiction / horror rather than mere suspense / action, and the elderly action star is largely offscreen in favor of his younger costars.  Count on him to arrive in time to save the day, because that’s who Liam Neeson is, and he is just as stalwart and acerbic as ever.

Jonny Campbell’s film (written by David Koepp, based upon his novel) begins with a trip overseas when a mystery virus wipes out a small village.  The “Green Team” operatives that respond (Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville) barely escape before having the area nuked to vaporize the menace.  Decades later Robert Quinn (Neeson) is pulled out of retirement to investigate an alarm at the underground lab where a sample was safely stored.  Thankfully for the world, Quinn is prepared for the chaos he finds when he arrives.

That’s the outline of the action, except that most of the movie takes place at the underground lab, which was eventually abandoned and is now a low-rent self-storage unit manned by an ambivalent slacker named Teacake (Joe Keery) and his inquisitive coworker Naomi (Georgina Campbell).  Their foray into the bowels of the building uncover the extent of the colossal failure of the holding system and the full extent of the disgusting pathogenic outbreak.  Other supporting characters arrive, only for most of them to meet vile, horrible, meaningless, gory deaths as the carriers lurch toward freedom.  Most of the movie concerns these people, and much of this material is played for dark, ironic comedy.  It’s actually fairly effective, if quite off-putting at times.

Maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t appreciate this approach as much as younger viewers probably do.  The situation posed by this scenario is in fact hellishly terrifying, beginning with the insane abandonment and disrepair that the original facility has undergone.  A straightforward suspense and horror approach to this would, I think, be very strong, similar to that of the “Resident Evil” franchise, but with more bite.  But that’s not what we have here.  We watch two young people with very little experience or common sense blunder into a doomsday scenario and calmly escape, killing when they have to.  The film’s biggest asset is the sharp and believable chemistry between these two, which goes a long way toward palpable enjoyment of the story.  And then, of course, grizzled Liam Neeson arrives to take matters in hand and save the world with item # 7 on his emergency checklist.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  19 August 2026.