Cool As Ice

Cool As Ice (1991)
Directed by: David Kellogg
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 8%

Hate Watch - The act of watching something simply for the joy of mocking it. This is not something I do regularly. I can just never bring myself to dedicate time to something that will not enrich my life in any way. Why would I want to watch a terrible movie on purpose? The good people from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax answered that question: because it's fun! As I was looking for things to watch Cool As Ice caught my eye. I had only heard about this movie in hushed tones. I wasn't sure it actually existed. When I saw that it was available OnDemand I got really excited. The only thing I knew about Cool As Ice is that it stars Vanilla Ice and that it was notoriously panned by critics (like everything Vanilla Ice does). Before I start, watch this clip. Trust me, it is worth the 5 minutes. It sets up the movie far better than I ever could.

This movie is INSANE! Literally everything about it is...bizarre. It is ultimately several music videos linked together by an uninteresting plot (which makes sense when the only other work the director has done IS music videos). The movie opens with Johnny Van Owen (I am going to refer to him as Ice in this review because why the Hell not) and his buddies riding motorcycles around the countryside in the early morning. The group sees an attractive woman, Katherine (Kristin Minter), riding a horse. Ice decides to ramp his motorcycle over a fence (because why not) and scares the horse which then throws Katherine off. She is less than thrilled about the fact that she almost went the way of Christopher Reeve and she punches him in the stomach. Because Ice has the mentality of a nine year old he thinks this means she is in love with him. He takes this as the universe's way of saying "Yeah, pursue her". Ice's sweet jump left his bike in less than working order so the group becomes stranded in the nearby town. The plot is similar to Doc Hollywood/Cars. While Ice and his "crew" are stranded in town they make their mark by introducing hip hop and neon colored clothing to the people. Kathy's parents and boyfriend, Nick, see that she is beginning to develop a crush on Ice and they discourage her from spending time with a drifter (because apparently Ice and his gang travel from town to town doing hip hop like hobos with terrible fashion sense but fly dance skillz). After several scenes of shenanigans and Ice motorcycling around town it is revealed that Kathy's father Gordon (Michael Gross) has a secret past. He is living under a fake name because he owes some crooked cops money. Frankly, this whole story was lost on me because I was so distracted by all the colors and weird hair styles. In the end, Kathy and Ice ride off together presumably to live as a duo of motorcycle riding, neon parachute pants wearing, hip hop dancing drifters.

This is what I think Vanilla Ice would do with a copy of Cool As Ice if he were to encounter one (go to about 1:27 in)

This is unfortunate because when aliens ultimately come to Earth to take control of our lives they will need to know that we didn't always take ourselves so seriously.

No BS

Cool As Ice is a truly awful movie but it is awful in a way that you can watch it and thoroughly enjoy yourself. I imagine there is a great drinking game to be invented for it. I bet if I had watching this movie drunk I would have found it much more entertaining and probably a lot more interesting. As it is, if you are looking for something of substance then keep looking. Cool As Ice was obviously intended to be a vehicle for Ice in an effort to secure more fame. Where did it fall short? Watch it and tell me.

My Score: 3/10