Review for Cool As Ice

Cool as Ice is either a wonderful parody, or possibly the stupidest film I have ever seen. I can't quite figure out which it is.

Vanilla Ice was once the hottest act in the… sorry I can't complete that sentence. Vanilla Ice is, was and always will be a one hit wonder and those who try and defend this, please name me three songs that are not Ice Ice Baby. I know I can't. However, with that song, Vanilla Ice was able to greenlight a film somehow starring himself in this loose remake of Rebel without a Cause. I say 'loose' as the only connection I can find between the classic James Dean film and this, is the fact that they both have motorcycles in it.

Vanilla Ice stars as Johnny, the leader of a tough motorcycle gang, who also happens to be a rapper too. This kind of makes the whole 'tough motorcycle gang' part a little redundant, as they are hardly Hells Angels. Johnny and his gang arrive in a small town, where one of their bikes' breaks down and they must stop to get it fixed. While this subplot is going on, Johnny meets and falls in love with Cathy, who of course is the daughter of a strict family who forbid her from seeing him. After watching the first dance and song number, I understand this completely. Cathy discovers that her father is in the witness protection program and is now being chased by the corrupt police officers he escaped from years ago. This subplot feels so forced, that you wonder why they attempted it in the first place.

The rest of the film feels like a music video or a commercial for an unnamed product. It is odd that they promote this film with references to Ice's Ice Ice Baby song and yet it doesn't appear. Instead, we are 'treated' to a number f odd musical numbers that make absolutely no sense and a number of scenes that look like an even more psychedelic version of the cleaning scenes from Requiem for a Dream and serve no purpose. Also despite the fact this is the first time it has been released on DVD, there are no extras on the disk, though I doubt I could handle a commentary about this film.

If Cool as Ice is meant to be a parody of all white rappers then it's one of the most insightful films I've seen, however if I am meant to be taking this seriously it is possibly the worst film I have ever seen. So bad, that Director David Kellogg has disowned it and the only award it was able to win is a 'Worst New Star Razzie' for Vanilla Ice. I can't decide if it's horrible, it's almost in that 'so bad, it's good' category. I say 'almost'.