Cool As Ice (1991)

Directed by David Kellogg. Starring Vanilla Ice, Kristin Minter, Michael Gross, John Haymes Newton, Victor DiMattia, Deezer D, Candy Clark, Jack McGee, S. A. Griffin, Sydney Lassick, Kathryn Morris. [PG]

The problem with cashing in on the popularity of a flash-in-the-pan recording artist with a feature film vehicle is that it takes many months for the concept to become a finished product, and by that time, the luster may be long gone. Such was the case for rapper Vanilla Ice and his first major role in a feature film, a really silly and slight story of traveling troubadour (er, roving rapper) Johnny Van Owen and his posse “breaking down” in a small town, and while waiting for a motorcycle to be fixed, he shocks the town with his fly rap skills and romances a local girl (Minter) whose father, an ex-policeman under witness protection, is being targeted by dirty cops from his past. How the latter plot thread ties into Johnny’s antics waxing chumps like a candle and telling easily-coerced women to “drop that zero and get with the hero” doesn’t really matter—it’s contrived beyond belief—since the only thing you’re likely to remember is the array of bizarre MTV-style visual tricks director Kellogg trots out (filters, smash cuts, speed-ups, all very random), especially during lengthy, music video-esque “wasting time” interludes (future multi-Oscar-winner Janusz Kamiński gets an early film credit for the distractingly flashy photography). Suitable only for those who swoon at the prospect of waking up to a Stranger Stranger Baby hovering over you while rubbing ice on your lips, so to them I say: try not to lose your movie privileges at the insane asylum. Model Naomi Campbell has a walk-on.

10/100