Why should Boba Phil be the only one who gets to watch (is forced to watch) terrible movies? Why did I suddenly decide that my life was pretty comfortable, so some kind of penance was required?
Or did I just suddenly remember the existence of this movie and think “F*ck it, there’s got to be some comedy in here somewhere!”? Either way, I watched Cool As Ice, and now you are going to have to read about it, because Outposters don’t leave another Outposter to suffer alone.
Sometimes, pop culture and movies need to be kept very, very far apart.
Don’t Stop, Collaborate & Listen!
There are cinematic disasters, and then there is Cool As Ice, the 1991 Vanilla Ice “vehicle” that Universal Pictures attempted to pass off as a movie. It remains one of the most baffling artifacts of early 90s pop culture, from a time when neon clothing was blinding, MC Hammer pants were considered acceptable, and white boy rap was still something society thought it could shrug off like a mild rash.
Cool As Ice isn’t just bad. It’s a rare film that transcends badness, like it’s trying to earn a PhD in Failure Studies. You don’t watch Cool As Ice so much as surrender to it. It’s cinematic waterboarding, delivered with the smug grin of a man who once claimed he grew up in the mean streets of Miami, only for journalists to quickly discover he actually grew up in middle-class Dallas, where the most dangerous thing he encountered was a mall sale.
But let’s back up. Let’s strap on our early ’90s goggles, you know the ones with the bright yellow frames and zig-zag temple arms, and take a deep dive into this time capsule of unearned swagger.
Here’s the plot, such as it is.
Vanilla Ice plays Johnny Van Owen, a wandering musician, dancer, biker, fashion terrorist, and philosopher-poet of the “Yo baby, drop that zero and get with the hero” school. He and his posse, complete with fashion choices that look like the result of a prison laundry explosion that hit a Skittles factory, roll into a small town after Ice’s bike breaks down.
They all ride motorbikes, and it is here we need some real talk. Motorbikes are not cool. They are meant to be cool. Easy Rider, and all that. But now think about the people you know who ride motorbikes. Think about them zipping themselves into their leather romper suits to squee and wee all about the countryside, unable even to have a decent drink when they get where they are going.
Motorcycling coolness is completely destroyed by the people who do it. The only thing more tragic than motorcycling is white boys rapping, so this movie is basically f*cked.
Rather than realising he should grow up, work harder, and buy an actual car, here Ice sets his sights on a straight-A, girl-next-door type named Kathy. She’s played by Kristin Minter, who spends most of the movie staring blankly like she’s trying to dissociate from being trapped in this cinematic hostage situation.
Her boyfriend is the most generic preppy jerk imaginable, clearly created in a lab from discarded sweater vests. Meanwhile, her parents are hiding from corrupt cops in a Witness Protection-esque subplot that feels like it wandered in from another script entirely, possibly one belonging to an actual movie.
That’s it. That’s the whole plot. Ice rides in. Ice hits on girl. Ice makes her boyfriend mad. Ice solves crime. Everyone learns an important lesson about… whatever Ice thinks the lesson is.
Rebel Without A Clue
Imagine if James Dean had worn neon overalls and talked exclusively in rejected lyrics from his own songs. That’s the vibe. That, and the answer to the question “What if MTV directed an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever?”.
Cool As Ice was directed by music video veteran David Kellogg, whose visual style can best be described as a migraine wrapped in a rave, dipped in highlighter ink. Every shot in this movie looks like someone tried to adapt the opening credits of Saved By The Bell into a feature film.
Kellogg had directed New Kids on the Block videos prior to this, which explains everything. His entire resume is basically a list of things your older cousin had on VHS that he swore he’d throw out but never did.
The cinematographer is Janusz Kamiński.
Yes, THAT Janusz Kamiński. Oscar-winning cinematographer, Spielberg collaborator, the man who would go on to shoot Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, shot this film.
Kamiński once manned a camera pointed at Vanilla Ice doing interpretive dance moves in a Day-Glo abandoned construction site. Hollywood is full of success stories, but Kamiński’s is one of the greatest underdog stories ever told.
As for the editing, imagine someone dropped the footage into a blender and pressed a button marked “MTV Bukakke Party”. The movie keeps cutting to random Dutch angles, freeze frames, and fisheye lenses like it’s physically incapable of sitting still. It’s like the film itself drank a gallon of Mountain Dew while mainlining speed and now has too many feelings.
Crimes Against Fabric
If you ever need to explain early ’90s fashion to future generations, all you need is this film. It is the Rosetta Stone of bad style.
Vanilla Ice’s wardrobe looks like he lost a fistfight with a Trapper Keeper. Enormous primary-colored jackets. Pants that appear to be made of seat covers from a very optimistic car dealership. Hair sculpted so aggressively it could have been classified as a weapon.
Every outfit screams:
“I am white, but I want you to know I’m TRYING.”
Ice wears clothes so bright and so large that NASA could have tracked him from space. He doesn’t look like a rapper. He looks like a first-round contestant eliminated from American Gladiators because his mom forgot to sign his permission slip.
Meanwhile, the townspeople are so aggressively normal that the contrast between them and Ice is nearly anthropological. Ice looks like he crash-landed here from Planet Fucktard.
The stories behind Cool As Ice are, predictably, incredible. Universal Pictures greenlit this thing because Vanilla Ice was at the height of his fame. This was right after Ice Ice Baby topped charts and just before the collective human conscience realized it had made a terrible mistake.
Ice demanded significant script changes, because of course he did. Rumor has it his contributions included adding more “dope lines,” such as that “Yo, you gotta drop that zero and get with the hero,” which sounds like something an elementary schooler says after inhaling too much arts and crafts glue.
Filming was reportedly chaotic because Ice insisted on improvising most of his scenes. Watching the movie, you can tell. Half his lines sound like he thought the camera was off and he was just trying to hit on a PA.
The studio hilariously believed Ice could carry a film because he “had charisma.”
The movie opened on October 18, 1991, a date that will live in infamy… or at least mild embarrassment. It earned $1.1 million on its opening weekend. That’s not just bad. That’s “your accountant gently puts a hand on your shoulder and asks if you’re sitting down” bad.
What else was in theaters at the time? Let’s see.
The Addams Family was there. Terminator 2: Judgment Day was still in theaters, as was The Silence of the Lambs.
Ernest Scared Stupid was out around the same time and outperformed Cool As Ice, which tells you everything you need to know about the public’s preference for wholesome window-licking over white-boy rapping.
Against real movies, Cool As Ice didn’t stand a chance. Even Hudson Hawk looked at it with pity.
The soundtrack is exactly what you’d expect: a series of aggressively overproduced hip-hop-lite tracks that sound like someone tried to Xerox a beat and lost toner halfway through. Ice performs several numbers in the movie. During these sequences, the film transforms into a chaotic fever dream of dance moves that appear choreographed by someone who has only seen dancing described in a police report.
You have to respect the confidence, though. Ice struts around like he believes every line of his own press releases. He raps like he’s introducing himself at a middle school talent show: big energy, small talent.
So why revisit Cool As Ice today, for you all?
Because it’s hilarious. Because it’s awful. Because it’s a pure, uncut dose of early 90s insanity preserved in amber. Because watching Vanilla Ice try to be a leading man is funnier than most actual comedies. It’s a film that boldly asks:
“What if we built an entire movie around a one-hit wonder and hoped for the best?”
Spoiler: You did not, in fact, get the best.
This movie is too shit to become a cult classic. It is so bad it is even too far gone for “So bad it’s good” to apply. It’s a monument to human arrogance. It is the Titanic of vanity projects, except the iceberg is Ice himself.
Cool As Ice is a disaster. A neon-drenched, freeze-frame-happy disaster. It’s the cinematic equivalent of hammer pants: ridiculous, unnecessary, and absolutely unforgettable. If you want to understand the early 90s, really understand them, just watch this movie. Then immediately schedule therapy.
If I were scoring thi,s I would give it one star simply for Janusz Kamiński for surviving the experience. Everything else gets a big fat zero, and f*ck the hero.
