Cool as Ice

Every once in a while a film comes along that changes the way we look at cinema. A film that redefines the art of movie-making and lives with the viewer long after he/she has experienced it. You may hear the critics mutter the words Star Wars, Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind but, obviously, they don't know Ice, they don't know him at all.

If ever there was a movie that proved the Oscars are a farce, it's Cool as Ice. It clearly got snubbed and I guess we'll never know why. The only reason I can fathom is the academy's fear of the Ice man's Day-glo clashing with the red carpet. Clearly the better solution would have been a Day-glo carpet.

Maybe I'm a little biased because I see so much of myself in Ice's character and the personal journey he embarks on in the film. I, too, am a complex, misunderstood white male, searching for identity and a good lawn on which to do the running man. I also have a way with words and a way with the ladies and, gosh darn it, I just love to impress country folk with my fly threads and dope moves on the dance floor, yep yep.

The script is a work of art and is destined to become a textbook example for its conflict, character development and subtext. I can't decide who the bigger genius is: The writer or Vanilla Ice, himself, because let's face it it's not just the lines but the delivery of them. "Lose the zero, get with the hero" - pure gold.

Do what ever it takes to see this film. Beg, borrow, steal or even buy it. For all those who still wear Day-glo clothing or caps with polished metal logos, who still shave lines into their eyebrows or just consider themselves romantics, Vanilla will reinforce what you already know: You are Cool as Ice. It's also a hell of a lot better than watching Vanilla on Celebrity Boxing, no really it is.

For those too young to remember, Vanilla Ice was a malignant tumor growing on the popular music scene ten years ago. Along with MC Hammer and Marky Mark he pilfered and diluted black music to make it commercially acceptable to middle-class white children. His flash-in-the-pan `attitude' eventually fizzled away - but not before becoming the blueprint for every idiot bad-boy pop star on top of the charts today.

Cut to ten years later, and the threat of an Ice comeback is unlikely. It's the perfect time to watch COOL AS ICE. The film bombed on release, and signaled the end was nigh for Vanilla Ice. Watching it today, the star reduced to a relic of inane pop history, the film becomes a candidate for the best worst film of all time.

Rebels and their motorcycles have a history on screen. They define the times. Marlon Brando was the quintessential bad boy when he rode into town as THE WILD ONE. Fast-forward fifteen years and history repeats: Fonda and Hopper rewrite the Hollywood rulebook in EASY RIDER.

In COOL AS ICE, the bad boy of rap rides into the suburbs with his all-black posse, ready to reap havoc on suburbia, right? Wrong. Ice's crew only reappear when director David Kellogg requires a cut-away shot. Even then, rather than scaring the local children, they're making peanut-butter sandwiches and watching TV. They sit around, waiting for Vanilla to get the girl.

The romantic sub-plot is a peach. She's the highest achieving student in town, but will she risk her future for Vanilla Ice? He's a self-educated poet of the street, although his actual words of wisdom somehow escape me at the moment. The sub-sub plot involves her father, who we are led to believe was the most honest cop on a corrupt force. Despite seemingly being transplanted back into the same community, he doesn't mind going on television so the bad guys can find him.

There's a few other sub-sub-sub plots of minimal concern, but no real story. It's a star vehicle resting on the shoulders of a ludicrously vain idiot. Fortunately, his fifteen minutes of fame and torture translates to a typically foolish ninety minutes. The most vain ego exercise in Hollywood history? Perhaps. All in vain? Definitely.

"Cool As Ice" is the work of art.

No, really. That's what the rap star wanna-be Vanilla Ice thinks when he starred in this movie cluttered with the piece of dog dung script from David Stenn. The movie showcases the atrocious acting by Vanilla Ice who bolsters his ego to triumph over evil and injustice, and gets to shag the girl of his dreams ("perverted fantasies" more like describes his intention of establishing a torrid love affair). It's so unbelievably bad you have to suspend the disbelief just to get the kick out of making fun of Vanilla Ice as he attempts to act like he's going to win an Oscar for Best Actor but ends up being an amateur, only riddled with the terrible one-liners and smirk expressions so annoying you want to punch him in his face.

The plot is nondescript. It's too absurd and rather bizarre to summarize, so I won't bother. The star Vanilla Ice leading a bunch of poseurs to run the errand and falling madly in love with a pretty girl and conquering evil is the plot I can think of. I must make a note of complaint that "Cool As Ice" is grossly misrated PG because there's the gratuitous use of the word "D***", some violence, the particularly scary sequence and excessive sensuality. There are the scenes that literally had me die laughing. So funny you'll ache your ribs and feel the pain as Vanilla Ice intends it to become embarrassingly painful when he saw the finished version for the first time and have hid in oblivion since.

Some particularly funny scenes (some may be spoilers):

After the opening MTV-style music sequence, it becomes obvious that Vanilla Ice could not act when a sexy girl comes on to him

Jumping over the fence with the motorcycle and inadvertently hurts the girl

Vanilla Ice stole the "black book" with the list of female friends and looks like a pimp when he boasts to his poseur friends

Vanilla Ice walks around wearing an overinflated orange puff coat with the bare chest and funky pants, shouting "Hey, yo! What's up?" in a grating accent in the first half hour, made to look like the gangbanging pusher

As the girl is about to enter into her house, Vanilla Ice grabs her elbow and said "All right. I get it. Check this through. If you need me, I'll be right over there" in front of her dim-bulbed frat boyfriend.

A poorly choreographed fight scene between Vanilla Ice and the bunch of jocks

Vanilla Ice is a potential sociopathic rapist when he enters and lies on the bed besides the sleeping girl without her consent/knowledge

The overindulgent erotic interaction scenes between Vanilla Ice and the girl, and that includes pseudo dry humping and groping. If they actually go all the way, Vanilla Ice would be guilty of statutory rape

The irony of Vanilla Ice wearing a black puff leather jacket plastered all over with the words like "Sex Me Up," "Oh Yeah," and "Lust"

Gratuitous slow motion scenes and gratuitous sexual innuendoes

Michael Gross' one-dimensional character as the girl's strict father and the attitude of Vanilla Ice when he had to leave at the insistence of her father

Older couple dancing to the funky music. Utterly preposterous

Vanilla Ice's most unintentionally funny scene -- "You know something? You don't know. You don't know me. You don't know me at all!" with a cocky attitude in a sarcastic tone and then rides away with a motorcycle

Vanilla Ice invades the girl's property and got sprayed wet by the water sprinkler. In the next scene, he jumps the fence with the completely dry clothes.

Vanilla Ice rides the motorcycle at over 100 MPH. So dangerous he should have died in a tragic accident

Vanilla Ice's line of "It's fresh, man" in response to a stupid kid brother's ridiculous hair

Vanilla Ice's line "I know that sound" when investigating the mystery sound on the loudspeaker

The audiotape about the kidnapping scheme is single-handedly the funniest scene in the whole movie -- you have to see and hear to believe it

The floating physics of Vanilla Ice's motorcycle gang crashing through the wall on the second floor at the construction building. Truly a laugh riot!

The violence at the construction site could be mistaken for the gang hazing ritual

Vanilla Ice wears a ridiculous black wool hat and said the line, "Imagine that." If you have the eagle eyes, it's obvious the stunt was pulled off with a steel ramp mounted over the car to be followed by the torturous closing music sequence.

All in all, the most unintentionally funniest movie I've seen -- and I've never laughed frequently and harder AT a movie before with the exception of "Project A-Ko" and "There's Something About Mary". No doubt this is a huge embarrassment that led to Vanilla Ice's demise as the hip-hop pop star and a movie actor. Highly ironic that Vanilla Ice said at the end, "I'm...outta here!"

How David Kellogg got hired by Disney to direct "Inspector Gadget" after this inane tripe that serves as Vanilla Ice' vanity is beyond my comprehension.

I hesitate to call this movie a really poor film, though don't get me wrong it is quite bad. But I believe it falls into a totally new genre of "crappy cult classics". When watching a film like Cool as Ice, I find myself asking over and over again, Are they serious? Who wrote this film? When they were writing the screenplay were they thinking: Yes, this is gold!

Now though this film is horrible, I find it very quotable which I believe is a major factor in assessing the quality of a film. Lines like "drop that zero and get with a hero" are unforgettable and hilarious. This movie is actually better then 75% of the comedies that are released in the movies today which sometimes even do well in the box office. Such movies come stocked with cliché's and overused jokes and though may be good for a few cheap laughs, are hardly worth seeing. Cool as Ice however is humorous (though not on purpose) and I think can be appreciated by anyone who was growing up during the early 90's. It really sums up what early 1990's were all about. I admit that it may be a little embarrassing if someone were to stumble across this title in your movie collection but if you ever see this movie for sale at a yard sale, I would recommend buying it for the full 1.00 price tag. It is worth watching with friends for some good laughs. My friends and I always mention this movie when discussing movie trivia and pop culture of the last decade. It always makes us smile. And isn't that what you hope for in a good movie?

This has to be to be the most unintentionally hilarious "movie" ever made! Its like the worst Saved By The Bell episode only...worse! You have to wonder what was going on through Vanilla Ice's head during rehearsals and sitting through the premeire...