Cool as Ice

I've read a few of the reviews about this film and most of them are pretty spot on. As a film it truly deserves to be rooted in the worst 100 list, terribly acting by the two *bad* cops, worse still by straight laced Michael Gross - and the less said about Vanilla's acting ability the better.

Worse than the acting is the absolutely hilarious Cameo by Naomi Campbell in the opening credits, who screams her way through a really really hideous song whilst dancing badly and constantly trying to brush her hair away from her face.

After this initial horrific all singing all dancing intro, some bint gives Vanilla her phone number just so that we're reminded how great Vanilla ice is, and then the film starts proper. At this point you're just recovering from the awfulness of the dark warehouse intro, and suddenly you're assaulted by the wildy vivid colours of... pretty much everything actually, it's a constant throughout the film that everything is just too vivid, its hard to explain, but once you've noticed it, its actually quite amusing.

This is pretty much how the film goes, just as you think you've seen the most awful scene in cinematic history, along comes another, worse one that manages to make the last one look average. A great example of this is the way that in the first couple of minutes, Vanilla 'bunny hops' his 250kg GSXR-1100 over a 5 foot high fence. An absolute classic moment in cinema which stays with you... kind of like syphillis.

But it's for all these reasons (and hundreds more) that you should watch this film. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I've never really been an advocate of the 'so bad it's good' school of thought, but I'll make an exception for this film. Not only have I seen it many times, but I bought it new from Amazon a little while ago so I can say I have an original copy. In years to come it will be completely priceless, such is the cult following of this shocking celluloid mistake.

I really would recommend that you see it, not because it's great, but just so you can appreciate how bad something can actually be, and how much of a complete freak of a movie this is.

I've never witnessed a scene in a movie which can compete with the pure hilarity of Vanilla dancing on his own, like a tw@t, outside the old people's house in his dayglo pants wearing his stupid jacket. I challenge anyone not to laugh outloud during this, and many other classic moments.

Deserves both 1 out of 10 as a film, and 10 out of 10 as a must see classic bomb.

This romantic(?) film begins with Mr. Ice stealing a square young lady's notebook in order to get her attention. Then, he follows her home. Then, when she later wakes up, he's sitting on her bed in her room! And, apparently, according to the film, this is the way to get a lady to fall in love with you. Odd, but most sane people would consider this stalking!!! This clearly puts the movie in the category of "Don't Try This At Home Kids!".

In addition to this dangerous message, the film is filled with tons of Mr. Ice's music--which sounds, oddly, like a combination of traditional Hip-hop and the music of the "Manhattans". I thought it was bad, but considering my age (45) I am not the best judge--I'll leave it to the younger crowd to tells us just how crap-tastic his music actually is.

The film is essentially a vanity project for a man who appears to be a talentless jerk. Now I am not saying that is true for Mr. Ice--but the film, because of its lousy writing, gives this impression. I am sure he's a nice person and is good to his mother, but how can a film be good if it has dialog like the following golden excerpt:

Girl: "Where are you from?" Mr. Ice: "Around." Girl: "Around?" Mr. Ice: "Yep.Yep."

A bit later: Mr. Ice: "I ain't where you're FROM matters anyway. It's more important where you are NOW." (oooh, that's deep!!!).

Overall, the film is great if you could use a laugh--otherwise, avoid at all costs. And, if you listened to and enjoyed his music back in 1991 or so, hide this film from your kids--they'll have a field day laughing at you, too!!

"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.

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.

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?