“Drop that zero and get with the hero!”

Justin’s rating: I mean, it’s no Ninja Rap…

Justin’s review: When you’ve been reviewing cult movies as long as we have, there’s bound to be a few that you know you’ve watched and swear you’ve written up, yet they’ve slipped through the cracks somehow. Cool as Ice, the 1991 magnum opus of Robert Van Winnkle, is one of those. So consider this my mea culpa and penance for the oversight.

I honestly don’t blame musicians for taking their shot at movies at the height of their career. As much as we mock Cool as Ice — and it should be mocked, roundly and repeatedly, even during funeral eulogies — I say “good on Vanilla Ice” for seizing the opportunity to make a movie that’s still remembered long after his career faded away. It’s one more film than I’ve ever starred in.

Mr. Ice is Johnny, a man who is blessed with great riches in this world. And by this, I mean he’s got a wild haircut that has Aztec symbology carved into it, the most epic round ’90s sunglasses ever constructed, a puffy orange coat (for summer!), and a neon yellow motorcycle. Oh, and he’s master of the rhymes and beats at whatever club he enters.

But he’s not content to be saddled with your average rap club groupie, no way, no how, because Johnny sets his sights on Kathy (Kristin Minter), a girl who was riding a horse in slow motion when he decided to jump his motorcycle right into the horse’s path and knock her off. I assume the fall induced brain damage, because she seems to like his audacious ‘tude.

Johnny steals Kathy’s organizer to manufacture a future meet-cute (this is a huge plot point), Kathy’s current preppy boyfriend is a raging jerk, Johnny’s friend finds that his motorcycle is “trippin'” and needs to be fixed, an octogenarian couple living in a fantasy house rebuild that motorcycle over the course of 90 minutes, and a couple gangsters come looking for Kathy’s parents (hi, Michael Gross!), who are in the witness protection program or something.

I’m going to pause here and emphasize that this may be the only film you ever see where there is a biker gang made up exclusively of rappers sporting outlandish fashion. Yeah, see, Mutant Reviewers’ Drake isn’t the only one who can bottom feed on humanity’s love affair with the motorcycle.

Thus begins a romantic saga for the ages, as long as that age lies between July 11 through 13, 1991. Because anyone outside of that era is going to find this an obnoxious romcom where the lead totes around a swollen ego and the desperate need to be admired by everyone watching this. Helping in this effort is Schindler’s List’s director of photography (seriously*), who tries to turn this into a cartoon with a string of bizarre shot choices.

Cool as Ice is one of those movies where you’ll spend a good portion of your viewing experience trying to imagine the unfortunate and unintuitive events and decisions that led to this final product. Because, honestly, your guess is as good as mine.

Oh, I’m sure that Vanilla Ice was hoping that this would boost his image and street cred, but dressing in every bright color and design that the early ’90s relished while rocking a flattop big enough to land a Harrier jet was not the path to eternal respect. Instead, this became a laughingstock immediately, an exhibit of swagger and stupidity that reminded us that not everything in the 1990s is worth remembering and admiring.

Looking for a good romcom with straight lines from start to finish? Seek elsewhere. Looking for a mess of unapologetic early ’90s excess, ridiculous people doing ridiculous things, rap changing the life of a small town like discount Flashdance, about six dozen song clips sandwiched into the proceedings, and the incredibly inexplicable origin story of Schindler’s List’s director of photography, then… here you go, weirdo.

Cool as Ice is hysterical and fun if you top it with plenty of irony, and I hate to say that I actually had a great time revisiting it.

Word to your momma.

*Janusz Kamiński

Intermission!

• Enjoy a slow-mo music video for the opening
• “I’m not Dopey, Sneezy, or Grumpy!”
• If the sprinkler system went off in a dance club, I’d think more people would be racing for the exit
• Horses do not like it when you jump your motorcycle in front of it
• “Yeah, you hit pretty good for a GIRL.”
• The guy pruning a tree from inside of it 30 feet off the ground cracked me the heck up
• His bike is trippin’! Trippin’ so hard!
• Houses can have roofs decorated with global maps. Who knew?
• Peanut butter and pickles and sardines and pineapple sandwich
• Those are huge salt and pepper shakers
• Vanilla Ice likes to randomly dance in front of houses for no good reason
• Yay, fast-forward scenes!
• Who buys a TV with a planter on top of it?
• Enjoy listening to Super Mario Bros 3 music
• I too want a giant HOMEGIRL belt buckle
• He’s going across the street to “schling a schlong.” Whatever that is.
• Ladies and gents, the worst rock band ever recorded
• The day when Vanilla Ice brought rap to this small town will be a day long remembered
• “Well, homeboy THIS!”
• Every girl loves to be woken by a strange guy in a fanny pack who breaks into her room to drip ice cube water into her mouth
• “See you later!” “Seeing you now.”
• “As soon as you’re done making sex?” Oh Tommy
• Time for a slow-mo music montage around a construction site to seal the romantic deal
• Teaching each other horse and motorcycle riding is as cringy as you might expect
• She doesn’t know you at all? Of COURSE she doesn’t. You just met her like two days ago and have only sprayed her with a hose.
• Really old couples make the worst motorcycle mechanics
• Those are the least convincing ropes ever to tie someone to a car