Reader's Choice: Cool As Ice

"Cool As Ice" is one of those movies everyone thinks I've seen already because I tell them I like to watch bad movies. "Oh so you've seen 'Cool As Ice' then. God that's awful, isn't it?" And I had to tell them the truth. "Oh yeah, it's fucking terrible."

What? I can't lose my street cred.

Anyway, now I can finally speak the truth because I have indeed watched the Vanilla Ice movie "Cool As Ice". Boy, I'm so glad they stopped making movies based on pop singers who were hot at the time. If they kept making movies like this, that'd be really fucking annoying.

Yes, at one point in this country, Vanilla Ice was a household name. I'm not saying he's bad, it's just more of a sign of the times. He was a pretty good rapper. And tell me you don't know the lyrics to "Ice Ice Baby". Go ahead and lie to me and tell me you don't. So naturally, someone said "Hey lets put him in a movie!"



And that movie starts off with, of course, Ice playing in a club while a bunch of hot chicks dance around. Ice performs a song about being "Cool As Ice" and there's Naomi Campbell in her pre-phone throwing days. Well, who knows, maybe she threw phones back then. She certainly didn't throw it when her agent called to be in this movie.

Anyway, Ice and his crew is leaving. They get on their hard core motorcycles and head to the next town, I guess. I'm assuming at this point Ice is playing himself and this is him on tour. But he travels without luggage or equipment so I have no idea how he's been getting by.

Eventually, he spots Kathy riding her horse off the side of the road. Ice thinks she's hot and the only way to express this is by doing a motorcycle stunt in front of her, spooking the horse, and throwing her off. Thankfully, she doesn't end up like Christopher Reeves. And this makes an horrible first impression.

We learn a bit about Kathy's home life. Her dad is Michael Gross and she's got a younger brother named Tommy. And then the most pointless news report on the face of the planet plays on TV. Some NATIONAL news program came to Kathy and did a story on her because she rides horses, gets good grades, and loves her parents!

HOLY FUCK STOP THE PRESSES! I'm serious, that was the whole point of the news report. That's like if they did a news report on your every day life.

"Hello, I'm Brian Williams. He likes to get up in the morning, take a shower, then leave for work. There, he earns money."
"That's right, I like money so I work here."
"Fascinating! More as it develops!"

During the report, a guy played by "HEY IT'S THAT GUY" Jack McGee (Seriously, read his IMDB page, he's been in EVERYTHING) is watching and he spots Michael Gross and is shocked that the dad from "Family Ties" has anything to do with this god damn movie.

During all this, one of Ice's friends bike breaks down and they end up in this neighborhood. There, they find this weird house that's decorated kinda...weird. There's spinning globes all over, there's giant books propped up, and actual written words are painted on the walls. It's kinda weird. Anyway, they meed Roscoe, who looked really familiar to me but I think it had something to do with him kinda acting bad and all bad actors tend to blend in. Anyway, Roscoe promises to fix the bike but hilarity ensues when they TOTALLY disassemble the bike! OH NO!!

Ice sees the report as well and this makes him fall even more in love or something. And he's so in love that when they meet again, he steals her organizer full of important papers! And of course Kathy has a boyfriend named Nick, who is a royal asshole. Honestly, you can write this entire movie in your head.

Turns out Michael Gross is in the witness protection program and he use to be a cop, who turned in some bad cops. So now those bad cops are after him. And all because some news station was bored and did a boring story on a girl who does regular stuff.

BREAKING NEWS! "This man also likes to eat food!"
"Yeah, when I get hungry, I like to eat."
"WOW!!! Back to you!"

Kathy goes to this lame club with Nick when Ice shows up, and does a song. Of course, everyone is into it...besides Nick. Nick shows how much of an ass he is by manhandling her. You know "The Godfather" has the famous catch phrase "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse"? Well, "Cool As Ice" tries to one-up them with Ice's brilliant delivery of "Drop that zero and get with this hero!"

Beautiful. I dunno who won for Best Actor in 1992 but god damn, it should've been Vanilla Ice.

The next day, Ice is suddenly in Kathy's bedroom. Stalker, much? He wants to go on a date with her and she reluctantly accepts. And their date is the most random date ever. And it's told over the course of 4 montages. First they go to a construction site where some houses are being built and they run around that for five minutes. Then she tries to teach him how to ride a horse but fails. And then after I said "But he didn't teach her how to ride his bike", they have a scene of her learning how to ride his bike. Then they're in some field of wheat where I swear to god they fucked. They had to have fucked. And finally, they're in some desert, just laughing while he dances. This went on for like 10 minutes! It was insane!

Oh dammit, I forgot a couple of scenes. To sum up the scenes I forgot, after Kathy and Nick got into a fight, Ice took her home. When he went back to the club, he found Nick and Nick's friends destroying the bikes that belong to Ice's friends, so Ice beats up Nick, which sends him to the hospital. And there was this weird scene where the camera just zoomed around Kathy's family. It wasn't explained at all.

Alright, now we're caught up. Michael Gross thinks Ice is teamed up with the cops after him and doesn't want Kathy to hang around him. He tells her the truth about who he is and what he did and she agrees to give him the cold shoulder. But Tommy (the younger brother) wants Ice to give him a ride on his bike, so Ice does so. When Tommy returns home, the cops are waiting and they kidnap him.

Michael Gross still thinks Ice had something to do with all this, but Kathy says "NO!!!!!" and runs out the house. She tells Ice about the kidnapping and here Ice plays CSI as he listens to the ransom demand tape and hears construction noises in the background.

Ice, Kathy, and Ice's crew (with the bike now all fixed up, I wonder if Roscoe had to fix the other damaged bike?) show up at the site, drive their bikes through the cop's hideout, and save Tommy. It's only this action does Michael Gross know that Ice had nothing to do with the kidnapping and that he's ok enough to date Kathy.

After a long 5 minute scene of Ice performing a song at another club and dancing with Kathy, the movie finally comes to an end. I will say this movie is horrible but it's the fun kind of horrible, that you can watch with some during a bad movie night and just laugh at everything.

The clothing is fucking terrible. I have no idea if Ice dressed himself or someone thought this was how he dressed. Everything was just so bright. I was a teenager in the '90s but I never embraced this style. Thank god, cause I was picked on enough growing up.

Yo, let's get out of here. Word to ya mother!


-Jason