Scraping the Barrel: #90, ‘Cool as Ice’

Thousands and thousands of films are made every year. And while some of them are destined for Oscar glory and widespread Metacritic acclaim, others wind up scraping the barrel on the IMDB Bottom 100. What makes these films so universally despised? Are they all really that bad? And, seriously, what’s the deal with From Justin to Kelly? We’ll answer all these questions (and hopefully more) with “Scraping the Barrel,” in which we review the ENTIRETY of the bottom 100, in order.

In today’s installment, Ryan Poynter takes a closer look (when he’s able to uncover his eyes) at #90, 1991′s Cool as Ice.

(Editor Note: We realize the Bottom 100 has changed slightly since we began this series. Our master list was frozen in July 2013.)

The Gist: Vanilla Ice assumes the role of douchebag-on-motorcycle in this 91-minute embarrassment that’s 50% Footloose, 50% The Wild One, and 100% everything we regret from the ’90s.

Those Who Shall Be Held Responsible: Directed by David Kellogg; Written by David Stenn.

IMDB Stats: #90, 2.4 rating

The Straight Dirt:

We’re all partially to blame that Cool as Ice exists. Let’s go ahead and get that out of the way. Before we got involved, Vanilla Ice was racing motocross and rocking open mic nights in Dallas. He was a fairly normal guy — but look what we made him do. I’ll admit, I owned (past-tense) a copy of To the Extreme, Ice’s album that sold 11 million units and swept him away in a gust of vanilla-hype into a world where cash-in movies and 11-inch plastic dolls of himself were a reality. But so did you. Because of us, Vanilla Ice became a worldwide success. It was at the height of that success that a greedy record executive gave him some bad business advice, and — BOOM — we got Cool as Ice. If I seem ungrateful, it’s because I am.

This film plays out like a Rob Van Winkle wet dream. In it he stars as Johnny, a too-cool-for-everything rapper/dancer/biker boy with a permanently smug face and no known genealogy. (Kathy asks, “so where are you from?” — “Around,” he says, enigmatically. Cool.) He rolls into small town, USA with his posse of backup dancers on neon-painted motorcycles, where he catches the eye of Kathy (Kristin Minter), the smartest, prettiest and most well-respected girl for at least 100 miles in any direction. One glance his way and, suddenly, Ice has gotta have her.

There are a few problems with that, though. Kathy’s got a boyfriend, Nick (John Newton), who is the underage-drinking, verbally abusive most-popular boy in school, and a father, Gordon (Michael Gross), who seems to be the only one in the entire town sensible enough to realize that Johnny is an idiot. Nick is only around to make Johnny seem appealing (which never really works). Gordon, on the other hand, introduces some crazy sub-plot about crooked cops and witness protection, but nobody cares and it never really gets much screen time, because, well — Vanilla Ice.

Johnny parades around this small town in his black-and-white-striped referee shorts and glossy pleather jacket poppin’ wheelies and spittin’ rhymes. He cocks his notched eyebrows and purses his lips as he delivers smooth one-liners in a way that makes both his face and tongue seem numb. (“Drop that zero and get with the hero,” he crows — could this be foreshadowing?) This is, apparently, all it takes to win favor in this town. It’s not long before Kathy ditches her old jerkoff boyfriend in favor of a new one.

Her parents are harder to convince. They’re not swayed until Johnny rescues their kidnapped son Tommy (Kathy’s brother) by — and I’m not kidding here — literally smashing his motorcycle through the second-story wall of the building they’re hiding in. He roughs up the bad guys with some moves he learned from playing Rock’em Sock’em Robots, throws Tommy on the back of his of his bike, and speeds off, glowing with a sense of achievement and sporting that same damn look that’s always on his face. Way to go, hero.

The film wraps up as Johnny brings the boy back home. Kathy’s parents apologize and admit that they were wrong about Johnny — even though they weren’t — and Kathy gives in to the greasy-headed biker boy. She and Johnny hop on his motorcycle and powerslide off into the moonlight, leaving small town life and her knuckle-headed ex-boyfriend in their skidmarks.

We all owe ourselves an apology.

Consensus: The ’90s equivalent of casting Nicki Minaj in a remake of Pretty Woman.

Should-Be IMDB Score: 2.0

Random Quotes:

“You know, that chick who drives the horse.” — This is how Johnny talks about the woman of his dreams.

“If you ain’t true to yourself, then you ain’t true to nobody.” — Johnny teaches his audience about double-negatives during the film’s most sentimental moment.

“When a girl has a heart of stone, there’s only one way to melt it. Just add Ice.” — This is actually a tagline on the movie poster. I’m serious.