Cool As Ice

Donkey: As our legions of regular readers have no doubt noticed (three or four people constitutes a “legion”, doesn’t it?), a rather high percentage of the movies that have made their way into our rotation are older films. In fact, I was once asked why we don’t review movies that are more current almost exclusively. The answer to that question is actually quite simple. One of the true staples of Shitty Movie Night is obscurity. Sure, we could review a movie that was just released in theaters, and we may do that at some point because, like a bi-sexual nympho with a bucket of Astroglide at an STD-free orgy, we like to keep our options open. But for the most part, this site is a love letter to those films that most people either haven’t seen or have long since forgotten. Sure, we could join the hordes of other people already taking up netspace debating over whether or not the new Star Trek movie was a brilliant re-imagining of a classic franchise or a disappointing cop out in an already very tired series, but then who would be around to warn you that The Ice Pirates will give you cancer if you expose yourself to it for too long?

With that in mind, for this week’s film we once again climbed into the Wayback Machine and journeyed into the near-distant past. Seeing as we didn’t have the girdles and halting speech pattern necessary to slingshot ourselves around the sun, we instead decided to fire up the Flux Capacitor and leave burning skid marks that followed us all the way back to the magical year of 1991. It was a magical year, dominated by a white rapper destined to redefine the way we look at music and movies. So slide into a pair of parachute pants and join us.

The Plot:

Donkey: The plot of Cool As Ice is about as fresh as an Air Supply concert, but we’re not supposed to notice because it stars the hottest act in the music industry today (so long as today is between April 12th and May 20th, 1991): Vanilla Ice. Like the vast majority of films that serve merely as a vehicle to promote someone’s fame, it blatantly steals every cliché known to man and dry humps them right before your very eyes while dropping funky dope beats, expecting you to forget that you’ve already seen this movie over a hundred times before. It’s the old tale of boy meets girl, boy tries to crotch slam girl into submission, boy gets framed for kidnapping girl’s brother, boy redeems himself with snappy one-liners and spastic dancing. That’s right, THAT same old story. But hey, at least it’s got Michael Gross in it. And as anyone who has ever seen a Tremors movie can attest to, you can only watch so many shitty movies before that guy shows up.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Milobar: We’ve got one of the greatest of the great tonight: Cool As Ice.

Donkey: This is one of the all-time champions and yet another strong contender for the greatest shitty movie we’ve ever seen.

Milobar: It really is. It’s tough to get much better than this. It’s one of the best done shitty movies, in my opinion, because they took this so seriously. They thought this was going to be a big blockbuster that people would drop their pants and jerk off in the street for.

Donkey: The movie starts with what is basically a prolonged music video. Vanilla Ice, or VI to those who know him best, is serving up a def jam in an empty warehouse. I can only hope that this is taking place in the middle of the day and the workers in the neighboring warehouses are wondering who the fuck is making that massively untalented racket.

Milobar: I love the stupid fashion trend from the early 90’s that VI is sporting, where you leave the tag on the baseball cap you’re wearing. That’s so fucking fresh.

Donkey: As the shitty music video continues, we get to see VI rap in the most Caucasian way possible while performing dance moves that are to hip hop what a full epileptic seizure is to the tango. But that is also interspersed with shots of a group of people breakdancing in a circle and a female backup singer that’s there for no apparent reason. Wait…is that…Naomi Campbell?

Milobar: What is she doing in there?

Donkey: I’m going to assume that she wanted to branch out from being a supermodel and showcase her singing mediocrity to the world, and apparently she thought that a VI movie was the best place to do it. And thus the last nail was slammed into the coffin holding that singing career before it even began.

Milobar: I find it hilarious that, realistically, if he had just come to stardom a decade later, Vanilla Ice could have been Justin Timberlake. White guy, raps a little bit, dances a lot, thinks he’s all that.

Donkey: At the very least he could have sung a couple of duets with Eminem. My vote would have been for a power ballad or two.

Milobar: He must just sit at home watching MTV and just cry over what could have been. And I love the part of this opening scene where he’s singing into a trouble light.

Donkey: That’s awesome. Again, it might be sort-of-but-not-quite-cool-looking if they were actually shooting a music video, but they’re just hanging out in a warehouse. You’d have to think someone there would look over at him and say, “Dude, you know you’re singing into a fucking light, right?” Once the song finally ends, VI and his crew get ready to exit the warehouse. Just then some random chick named Monique comes up and gives VI her number, as his crew taunts him from a distance. VI must be the only who doesn’t know that this chick has crabs.

Milobar: This is such a goddamn Vanilla Ice jerk off fantasy.

Donkey: With that display of sheer animal magnetism that would give a neutered, overweight gerbil a run for his money out of the way, the crew jumps on their crotch rockets and takes a completely unmotivated ride on a highway. They don’t make any mention of where they’re going or why, but one can only guess that VI took the concept of riding off into the sunset a little too literally, as they started in the night and are still riding as the sun comes up the next day.

Milobar: Now we get one of the greatest scenes in any movie ever. As they’re driving along the highway, VI notices a girl on a horse in a field, running along beside him. He thinks to himself that he’s going to impress her with his motorcycle. And of course he decides the best way to do this is to jump his bike over the fence between them and land in front of her.

Donkey: Neither the milk that just shot out of my nose nor my prostate were ready for that display of awesometude. I’d love for someone to explain how the fuck he pulled that off. Sure the road is about a foot higher than the base of the fence, but there’s no incline that would allow him to jump that fucking bike like he did, so he should have just barreled into that fence head first.

Milobar: He lifted it with the power of his smile. And as anyone would expect to happen, jumping his bike right in front of her spooks the horse and the girl gets tossed off of it.

Donkey: And yet the Iceman seems surprised when she gets up and punches him in the stomach. No shit. I’d beat him to death with his own bike. Instead she allows him to compose himself while wallowing in indignity.

Milobar: And then VI says, “You hit pretty good…for a girl.” Is he trying to impress her or piss her off?

Donkey: That seems about the right way to win over the ladies. If you’re in fucking grade school, that is. Offer her some of your paste and construction paper, VI, but don’t let her play with your fingerpaints. Only pussies do that.

Milobar: She leaves VI there like a chump and he says, “Yup yup…she likes me.” You know, I’d love to know how he got his bike back over that fence and onto the road.

Donkey: VI and the Cirque De Analwarts continue on until finally they arrive in downtown ButtFuckNowhere, USA. As they cruise down the main strip, one of VI’s homeboys has his bike break down. Quick to react with intelligence that makes a GED look about as attainable as a Nobel Peace Prize, they all stop in the middle of the damn street and start poking at it.

Milobar: It’s a goddamn motorcycle, not a freight train. You can push it off the road.

Donkey: Quite appropriately, the cars lined up behind them in the street start honking and yelling for them to move. Big Whitey is in a hurry to get to a sale at the GAP and is getting pretty upset at this lack of consideration, but once the scary black people turn around to look back at them, they all cower down and hide. Racism is hilarious, apparently.

The knee-slapping lack of tolerance continues in the next scene as it shows the crew riding through the suburbs where everyone is looking at them with their mouths blatantly agape. Where did they ride to that these people haven’t seen black people before? 1951? They stop moments later in front of a house that was clearly designed by a madman on a peyote bender and decide to just sit and check out this “crazy whack house”. Just then some old dude runs out and tells them that they’re late, that he’ll give VI five hundred dollars for his bike. After a few seconds of nonsensical dialogue, the man calls his wife out to continue the haggling, where she concludes that VI’s bike is worth more than their house. Wait, how much does this movie think a bike’s worth?

Milobar: What the fuck is their house made out of? Cardboard? And goddamn, I love that hat that VI is wearing. What the fuck is with the metal on it?

Donkey: The old couple then offers to fix their bikes for no possible reason whatsoever, so VI takes them up on their offer, suggesting that they can work on the one that has broken down. As the old people try to fix the bike moments later, a montage of pure insanity has its way with our faces. One of the crew is sitting in a living room with giant salt & pepper shakers and blue eggs, while another is in the kitchen eating a peanut butter-pickle-sardine-mustard-pineapple sandwich, and VI is just dancing in the driveway even though there wouldn’t be any music playing or reason to dance whatsoever.

Milobar: With no shirt on. This is scene out of the Village of the Damned.

Donkey: It just seems like a shitty music video again, as they’re playing another song in the background. This is ridiculous. If you needed a soundtrack to kill yourself to, this movie has got your answer. Eventually his crew ends up napping in various places around the yard while VI continues his dancing in the driveway. He sees the same girl on the horse that he almost killed earlier drive by with her boyfriend and park at a house a few doors down.

Milobar: VI decides to investigate and as he does, we hear him say, “Awwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeaaaahhhh.”

Donkey: Well said. The girl, whom we discover is named Kathy, and her boyfriend named Nick are arguing about going to different colleges when VI strolls up and asks how she’s doing. She tells him to go away, painfully awkward and poorly delivered conversation ensues that is making her lack of interest apparent to anyone with an IQ that starts with a positive number, and VI finally the encounter with the following undeniable genius:

Vanilla Ice: “Oh yeah, Kat…words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero.”

Milobar: I have got to say that to so many more women.

Donkey: Especially after having only known them for 73 seconds. If that doesn’t get you a rimjob in the back seat of a Subaru Forester every time, I don’t know what will. That is seriously one of the greatest lines in the history of cinema. Having made his glorious exit and returned to the crazy house, VI reveals to his pose that he stole Kat’s black book. Wow. That’s sneaky and completely useless.

Not willing to rest on its laurels, the movie goes to yet another random scene of ridiculous insanity. It goes back to Kat and her family going about their daily routine inside their home. But this tedious moment of stereotypical middle class life is given an urban make-over of kickassery, as the film is sped up, the camera keeps zooming in and out randomly, and it’s all set to a shitty mix of beat-boxing and asstastic hip hop music to create a weird manic effect that makes me want to take my own life with a particularly sharp cheese.

Milobar: This is like a nightmare I had of the most horrible future I could imagine for myself.

Donkey: Once that scene is finished serving no purpose imaginable, the family sits around a big old wood cabinet TV and watches a news story on Kat and her horse that appears to be about nothing. But they’re not the only ones to be captivated by this pointless drivel. Back at the House of Despair, VI and the gang catch the same news story. And at the same time, we see some random thug in a bar also happens to see it as well. He recognizes Kat’s father, who is played by Michael Gross, once he’s brought into the interview. The thug immediately jumps on the phone and exclaims to the person on the other end of the line that he’s found him. I understand that VI and his gang could possibly happen to catch the same story a couple of doors down, but what are the fucking odds that someone in a bar somewhere would see this feel-good filler piece on some shitty local news broadcast?

Milobar: You’re not going to believe who I just saw on TV…the father from Family Ties.

Donkey: Moments later Kat’s family gets an ominously empty phone call, so you know what that means: trouble is brewing up a cold cup of decaf who-gives-a-shit. The family then disperses, leaving only Kat and her young brother in the living room where she discovers that her organizer is gone. After tracing back the events of the day, she soon realizes exactly where it is.

Milobar: All the while you can hear that her brother is playing Super Mario Bros 3.

Donkey: I would actually rather the soundtrack to this movie was Super Mario Bros 3. That would make VI’s random dancing far more hilariously palatable. And sure, the brother’s playing the game, provided that you can play a video game with nothing more than facial expressions of intense malaise.

Milobar: And slightly vibrating your thumb.

Donkey: If that’s the case then this kid is kicking that game’s ass. Seriously, this kid looks so unimpressed that you’d think he was playing a Christian themed videogame that consisted of nothing more than Charlton Heston reading the bible. Meanwhile, Not-Cool and the Gang check on the progress of the old couple’s attempt to repair their bike, just to see that it’s been stripped down to the point where it consists only of basic parts. Wouldn’t you know it; they’re going to need at least another day to put it back together, giving the crew a reason to stick around and get into some whacky hi-jinx. That’s what we call a clever plot device that is in no way ripped off from a Three’s Company episode, bi-otch. Word to your mother.

Milobar: What exactly did you think these bat shit crazy old people were going to do to your bike? And put a goddamn shirt on. VI’s just wearing a jacket with no shirt underneath at this point.

Donkey: It looks like a winter coat too. And since they appear to be in California, you know that he’s just sweating like a pig in that thing. I bet that smells terrific. Next we see a quick scene where the random goon and his partner are sitting out in the desert, plotting on how they’re going to find Kat’s father.

Milobar: That one dude is playing with his gun, pretending to shoot shit. You know, anyone who was a career criminal like this guy is supposed to be would not play with their goddamn gun like that. The only people who would do that are people who have never held a gun before.

Donkey: Yeah, I think it’ safe to say that the amount of dumb shit you’d do with a gun is directly proportional to the amount of time you’ve spent actually having one. And that’s why I’d juggle a pistol and two babies while riding a unicycle and being on fire. As we move back to VI, he informs the rest of his crew that he’s outta here, heading across the street to…sigh…”schling a schlong”. Seriously. That’s what he said. So this fantastic retard heads back over to Kat’s house wearing an outfit that can only be described as truly appropriate when one must schling his schlong. He’s wearing goddamn pants that are too tight and look like he’s been blocking paintballs with his crotch for about a decade, and a jacket that has random words written all over it. Wow. People in 1991 were fucking stupid.

Milobar: “Danger! Lust! Sex Me Up!” That’s just awesome. And I love how he walks up to Kat’s door and knocks by pounding on it once.

Donkey: Kat’s mother and young brother answer the door, clearly startled by the shit and hairspray sandwich standing before them. It turns out Kat’s not home and her mother is not keen to give out the details of where she is. No shit. If I saw a guy looking like that at my door asking about my high school daughter, I’d probably be burying him in my backyard within the hour. The brother is too stupid to know an idiot when he sees one, though, and immediately tells VI she’s at the Sugar Shack. As VI leaves the house, he sees the two goons, who have apparently arrived in town and are just waiting in the street right outside the house, and asks them where he can find the Sugar Shack. As they send him in the wrong direction, Michael Gross takes a moment away from missing his beard to look out the window and see VI talking to them.

Milobar: And of course, he assumes that VI is their ringleader.

Donkey: Of course. Two middle aged criminals would definitely answer to a man dressed as an assclown.

Milobar: If they’ve come to find Michael Gross, why are they just sitting outside his house? Shouldn’t they go kick down the door? Or at least knock?

Donkey: These criminals are apparently considerate enough to wait for them to finish their My Two Dads marathon. Next we cut to the Sugar Shack as VI and his crew survey the scene.

Milobar: Where did his crew get a change of clothes from? How much luggage could you possibly carry on crotch rockets?

Donkey: Although it sounds like a diner or nightclub, the Sugar Shack turns out to be a combination of an actual backyard shack and shitty high school gym. As Kat and Nick talk about how much more badass he is than her for drinking Peach Schnapps, she looks over and sees VI.

Milobar: Fuck, that wave in VI’s hair is amazing.

Donkey: He looks absolutely intoxicating. Half of the hair on the back of his head is shaved in a brick pattern, while the other half is shaved to look like lightning. It’s too bad he didn’t manage to shave some dignity in there. Back at Kat’s house, the two goons knock on the door and proceed to blackmail Michael Gross and his wife, after having stood outside for what appears to have been hours as it’s now dark.

We return to the Sugar Shack just as VI and the crew decides that it’s time to pump up the awesome for these dull suburban kids. They unplug the equipment of the house band with a single flick of the wrist and suddenly start kicking out the jams. How the fuck did they get a turntable set up that quickly?

Milobar: They had it on the back of one of their bikes.

Donkey: And thus begins another music video, featuring some more of the worst choreographed dancing seen by human eyes, featuring VI and one of his homeboys.

Milobar: Because that’s what two dudes do in a club: synchronized dancing. “I want to thank you for letting me be myself”? What the fuck is he even singing about? As he babbles on, he pulls Kat out of the crowd to dance with her. She tries to walk away at first, but when he pulls her back a second time, she’s suddenly into it. Uh oh. Nick’s getting jealous!

Donkey: Once the song and his attempts to shatter her spinal column with his jackhammering pelvis are finished, she demands her organizer back. Nick then pulls her away and tells her that she’s embarrassed herself enough for one night. You know, this guy is supposed to be a douche, but I actually completely agree with him. That was embarrassing just to watch, let alone be involved in. Once they’re outside, they have a stereotypical fight where he treats her like a dog.

She walks off and then we see her strolling down the middle of the street in the dead of night, as a water truck comes up behind her, turning off the water to pass her. Why the fuck is that truck watering pavement?

Milobar: That’s what they do in the US, apparently. They spray something that most of the world is desperately in need of, clean water, all over the road just to piss off people in Africa.

Donkey: Moments later we see that Kat’s being stalked by a car that’s pulling up behind her, in which are the two goons. But just as they are about to close in, she is saved by VI, who screeches onto the scene, pulls her up onto his bike, and takes her home. You know, that might have seemed a lot more dramatic if she hadn’t been walking down the middle of the fucking street in the blackness of night. For all we know, that might have just been a car that was slowly pulling up to wait for her to get the fuck out of the way.

Milobar: As he drops her off and she rejects his advances again, VI says, “Dissed again.” Just like every other day of his life.

Donkey: Get used to it, VI. Once Kat enters her house, she finds her parents sitting in the living room in the dark. They assure her that everything is fine, but warn her to stay away from strangers. Yep, nothing is wrong at all. Your mother and I sit in the living room in the dark and just cry all the time.

Milobar: VI returns to the parking lot of the Sugar Shack to discover that Nick and some other dudes are smashing one of his pose’s bikes.

Donkey: Naturally, a fight ensues where VI takes out the four guys on his own, like it ain’t no thing.

Milobar: Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing. Because obviously being a white rapper from the streets means that you’re a badass and you know kung fu. But where the hell are his friends? But once he’s done, VI just walks away and leaves the bike there.

Donkey: You’d think the dude whose bike was smashed to shit would be interested to see what happened, at least. But we move on to yet another one of the greatest scenes ever conceived by the human mind. We see Kat restlessly tossing around in bed before she finally gets to sleep. Then we see her face the next morning, as she sleeps. Water starts dripping into her mouth, slowly waking her up, just before VI jams an ice cube into her mouth saying, “We don’t want to wake up mom and dad.” WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? Don’t wake my parents? How’s about you don’t wake me up by jamming something down my throat then, asshole. That’s fucking insane. She seems relatively unsurprised, though, as she rolls over to see him lying in her bed next to her.

Milobar: In what has got to be one of the gayest outfits I could possibly imagine on a man.

Donkey: He returns her organizer to her, only to discover that she took his license and the slip of paper with the chick’s phone number from the beginning of the movie. He chases her around her bed, playfully demanding the stuff back. Of course, he seemed concerned about it a moment ago, but now seems quite content to wake the whole goddamn house. He then plays it cool, refusing to leave as she says she has to get changed. To show him how much courage, but very little dignity she has, she starts to unbutton her shirt in front of him. Just then the little brother bursts into the room and discovers the two of them in their moment of supreme disgrace. He recognizes VI right away and makes VI promise him to take him for a ride on his bike. Once the brother leaves, VI finally climbs back out the window, while Kat falls swooning down on her bed in a release of pent up ecstasy. Yeah, I can see how a gay man busting into your room, laying next to you like a stalker, and jamming an ice cube into your mouth while you sleep is a turn on.

Milobar: As VI gets back to his bike, Kat comes out the front door of the house and joins him. Fuck, she got changed awfully fast. And you know, I don’t want to necessarily say anything, but she hasn’t showered.

Donkey: Well, if there’s one man on the face of this Earth who is not worth washing your vagina for, it’s Vanilla Ice.

Milobar: If there’s one man worth shoving a fistful of dirt up there for, it’s him.

Donkey: They take off on his bike, and once again bad 90′s dance music pipes up as they show generic and uninteresting shots of scenery whizzing past them on the highway.

Milobar: Finally they arrive at a construction site where there’s a random piledriver and hang out in the framework of a half-built house.

Donkey: Thus begins the romantic, tender “getting to know you” portion of the film. First they start with awkward conversation that is as cryptic as it is pointless. Then they begin to randomly chase each other through the framework of the house, playing a shitty game of peek-a-boo that might be fun for all of seven seconds.

Milobar: It would be awesome if while they were swinging around on this house’s support beams, the whole thing just came down on top of them.

Donkey: “I’m buried under five tons of lumber! Yup yup! Word to your mother, I’m dying!” But now that he’s laid the groundwork of sexiness with after all kinds of pointless banter and kindergarten games, VI finally seals the deal with a kiss. Later it cuts between scenes of them riding the same horse that VI knocked Kat off of earlier, and making out on his bike in the middle of random salt flats. Of course, he naturally follows up making out with a horrible display of dancing, just to make her throw up any semen that he might have managed to convince her to swallow while we weren’t looking. Is there any time this asshole won’t just start dancing?

Milobar: When he’s crying in the shower, or eating a four gallon tub of ice cream in bed, wondering what happened to his life.

Donkey: You know, watching this entire display, I can’t help but wonder how old VI is supposed to be in this movie, because she’s only a high school student.

Milobar: No doubt. She’s graduating, but she’s still in high school nonetheless. So she’s got to be seventeen or eighteen at the most.

Donkey: And I’m sorry, there’s no way you can say VI is eighteen. So this is kind of gross. After their remarkably uninteresting date, they return back to Kat’s house in the evening and he walks her to the front door, where she gives him a ring, only to be interrupted by her father.

Milobar: The father tells Kat about how VI put Nick in the hospital. What? VI couldn’t put himself in the hospital.

Donkey: Why the hell would Nick be in the hospital? VI hit him twice, and not even that hard. Does the guy have a fucking infected sliver?

Milobar: He’s got a case of the smallballs, which happens to any man that gets his ass kicked by VI.

Donkey: They have literally ascended back into his stomach in disgrace. But after seeing his daughter stick her tongue into an abyss of shame, Michael Gross is naturally as sickened by this as I am, so he sends Kat inside and then tells VI to get lost, which causes me to immediately applaud. After being rejected, VI returns to the House of Mindfarts, where his gang was left to hang out with a couple of old people all damn day. Meanwhile, Kat sits down in her bedroom with her father and mother who decide to reveal their dark secret past.

Milobar: As an aside, I love the bowl of fish that she has in this scene. There are so many fish in that bowl that you’d have to clean it every damn day. There are two dozen fish in that fucking bowl with no rocks at the bottom or anything. That would be dirty in five minutes.

Donkey: It turns out that Michael Gross used to be a cop just before Kat was born, but that he ratted out two other cops for being crooked and helped send them to prison. He entered the Witness Relocation Program, was given a new job selling insurance, and was living a quiet life until those two goons got out of prison, saw him on TV, and showed up at his door. Wait, the government gave him a new job and it was selling insurance? What kind of hell is that?

Milobar: “We’ll put you in the Witness Relocation Program – Great! – selling insurance. Fuck you! I’d rather take my chances. When the criminals said that they were going to kill me slowly, I didn’t think you were going to take it to the next level like that.”

Donkey: What sense does it make to put someone into the Witness Relocation Program and then make him sell insurance? Why the fuck would you put someone who’s trying to hide into a career where they have to be very visible and harassing people constantly? Fuck, if you want to put him in a place where no one will see him, put him in an Asylum film (editor’s note: Michael Gross is actually in an Asylum film).

Milobar: Granted, I’ve never been in the Witness Protection Program so I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure that whether you’ve been in it for twenty years or twenty minutes, there’s a number you can call where you can say, “You know those people that you’ve been hiding me from? Well they found me, so come get me right now.” Isn’t that the whole point?

Donkey: Yeah, otherwise you’re not hiding them. You’re just saying, “Here’s fifty bucks, a new name, and a bus ticket to Idaho. Get the fuck out of my office.”

Milobar: That wouldn’t really encourage people to turn state’s evidence for you.

Donkey: The next day we see Kat step out of her house wearing a splendid pair of jeans as VI waits on his bike by the curb. Unless she’s a mother of three in her mid to late forties, those pants are way too fucking high. Seriously. I’m not saying that she has to wear low rise jeans, but they shouldn’t be a foot above her belly button like that unless she’s participating in a secret government study of how to fight yeast infections using an aggressive case of camel toe. VI tries to convince her to come with him for another monotonous date, but she gives him the cold vagina. Once she finally comes out with it and says that she can’t see him anymore, VI starts to pout and then races off on his bike, speeding down the highway. Once again, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING?

Milobar: He’s going back to the salt flats, apparently, where he can drive so fast that he gets a face full of bugs.

Donkey: Eventually we see VI back at the House of Crazy, where he flops down on a couch in the yard to think. And by think, I mean repeatedly sing Color Me Badd’s I’m Gonna Sex You Up over and over in his head. Goddamn it, I just can’t take a man seriously when he’s looking like he’s doing some deep pondering and he’s got hair like that.

Milobar: Kat’s younger brother comes over and asks VI if he can get that motorcycle ride that he was promised. And to show that he’s sporting a healthy obsession with a dude that he’s only seen twice, he shows off the fact that he’s done his hair up just like VI’s.

Donkey: Seriously? This movie is honestly going to try to suggest that even someone as stupid as a child would be that impressed with this guy? And this kid cut his hair like that himself? Has no one in this movie ever seen what happens when a kid cuts his own hair? This kid would look like an aging sales rep trying to fight the onset of male pattern baldness with a comb-over so sparse that he could have a pet name for each hair on his head. But VI eventually gives in and takes the younger brother out for a ride.

Milobar: Because nothing will win over her parents like endangering their child on your bike.

Donkey: As they go for their ride, it shows another montage, focusing on the rest of VI’s gang, once again just passing the time back at the House of Crazy. I love how he’s out taking part in all these fun adventures and expecting his friends to just sit around that fucking house and kill time. And that’s exactly what they’re doing as we see them build a house of cards, throw paper airplanes off the roof, and then just randomly dancing in the streets. What the fuck is with the dancing in this movie?

Milobar: And they’re cool with him just completely abandoning them once again. I’d have gotten pretty pissed long before this point.

Donkey: As VI and the little brother cruise around, they pass by Nick, whom we see has a broken nose. Wait, are you trying to tell me that this asshole was in the hospital for the night because of a broken nose? As they continue on, I’m not sure why the movie feels that it’s necessary to constantly cut between shots of VI and the younger brother riding and shots of the old couple working on the bike, arguing with one another, but they do. Yes, they’re working on the bike. They’re crazy. We get it. I don’t need to see them argue over every fucking bolt in the thing.

Milobar: VI drops the younger brother back off at home and tells him that he’s out of here, “just like yesterday”.

Donkey: Goddamn he’s such a wordsmith. This man can turn a phrase almost as fast as he turns my stomach. VI then goes around to the side of the house, climbs into Kat’s window, and throws the ring that she gave him into her fishbowl. Yeah, because that’s what the two dozen fish in that small bowl need is more shit in there. And then finally he jumps back on his bike and peels out, screeching off into the distance. Hey, VI…you only needed to go two houses down the block, dude. So as dramatic an exit as that was, before you even finished peeling out, it would be time to put the brakes on.

Milobar: As the younger brother sits at home by himself playing Tecmo Bowl, the two ex-cop goons break in. He tries to get away, but eventually the Wet Bandits get their hands on him and drag him off.

Donkey: He should have set up more blowtorch and paint can booby traps. Kat gets home shortly thereafter, oblivious to the kidnapping, and finds the ring in her fishbowl. Naturally, as any woman would be after realizing that she’s lost her grip on a human joke, she’s devastated.

Milobar: How upset could she possibly be? She’s known him for a day and a half, and for the first part of that time she hated his guts.

Donkey: The parents get home soon, and together they all discover that the younger brother is missing. Back at the House of Crazy, VI trying to tell his homies that it’s time to split, that he don’t care about all this shit. But they know better. They tell him that he’s in too deep. Yeah, that will happen in a day and a half. VI decides to go over and give it one last shot to talk to Kat. As he walks up to the front door, he notices an envelope sitting on the porch. He picks it up, knocks, and after being thoroughly rejected by Kat, VI hands the envelope to her father and tells him this is for him. The envelope, of course, contains an audio tape on which Kat’s younger brother is made to read a ransom note. So naturally, Michael Gross assumes this is from VI.

Milobar: How convenient.

Donkey: Come on, people. VI is clearly not smart enough to organize a rescue mission to find his favorite stuffed animal in his own closet, let alone a goddamn kidnapping. Kat, well aware that she’s been making out with someone who’s legally retarded, tries to argue that there’s no way that VI’s involved in this, but Michael Gross will have none of it. He tells her to wake up, that he didn’t just come to the house to see her, but to deliver the ransom note.

Milobar: Yes, what a great ruse. Why would he bother trying to talk to her then and not just leave it in front of the door? Why bother to pretend?

Donkey: Still insisting that he’s innocent, Kat grabs the tape and runs to find VI. He and his crew are still hanging out over at the House of Crazy, loitering for no discernible reason. Kathy runs in and begs for help, because going to him makes a lot more sense than going to the cops. Eventually, after waving the standard twenty five cent fee made standard by Encyclopedia Brown, VI agrees to take on the case and listens to the ransom tape himself. As he’s listening intently, trying to figure out how he can sample it for his next nowhere-near-hit single, he notices the sound of a piledriver in the background. But of course, he doesn’t recognize it at first. What could that be?

Milobar: That’s the sound of my career being pounded into the floor. Thank you, CSI Junior. But once he finally recognizes the sound and where it came from, VI and his homeboys decide that they’re going to save the kid alone.

Donkey: The gang jumps on their bikes and quickly head to the construction site. They arrive there and look around, but find not a single clue. Well, at least they don’t find any within the immediate proximity of their bikes, as they don’t bother to get off them.

Milobar: Maybe if you took your sunglasses off, VI, you could see shit. Seriously, how can you ride a motorcycle at night with sunglasses on?

Donkey: So after thirty seconds of searching, the crew tears off on their bikes, leaving the scene. It’s then revealed that the Wet Bandits are hiding in a nearby unfinished house, hanging around in the dark with the younger brother tied up in a corner. As they see the gang tearing off into the night, the two goons begin to reflect on their aspirations for the future. These two criminal masterminds have dreams of living large once they collect the ransom. And by living large, we mean that they’re pining to…own a house. Wow. Shine on you crazy diamonds.

Milobar: Suddenly VI and the gang bursts through a wall and into the room on their motorcycles. Of course, just a moment ago these Wet Bandits were on the second floor.

Donkey: Not only that, but the gang just burst through a wall made of drywall, leaving a huge hole. I guess they don’t realize it, but drywall has to be nailed to something, something like studs or wooden beams in the wall that are usually no more than a foot apart.

Milobar: And I’d love to see you drive a motorbike between those.

Donkey: Once again VI proves how badass he is, as he quickly dispatches of the two criminals and saves the day. These two hardened criminals were prepared to deal with the police, but apparently had no defense against a rapping white tragedy.

Back at the house, Michael Gross and his wife are standing in their front yard talking to the cops when the crew comes rolling up, blaring their horns like they’re in a wedding procession. They return the younger brother to his parents and deliver the captured Wet Bandits, who are tied to the hood of the car that they’ve arrived in, to the cops. With his son returned safely, it’s time for Michael Gross to swallow his pride and go say thank…OH GOD!! What the fuck is with that toque that VI’s wearing?!

Milobar: How can you take anyone seriously if they were wearing that toque? You know, I’d love to shake your hand, but you’ve got to take that shit off your head first.

Donkey: He looks like he’s stealing a bowling pin under that fucking thing.

Milobar: Sir, do you have anything under that hat? Like a football?

Donkey: Now that he’s been redeemed, the child has been returned to his parents, and his rather disgusting relationship with Kat has been endorsed, VI declares, “Let’s G-O!”

Milobar: Just as the pose is about to leave, Nick rolls up in his car and demands to know if Kat knows what she’s doing, then declares that she better like being a biker chick because she’ll never see him or his car again.

Donkey: VI scoffs and then pulls one last move of sheer brain melting sweetness. With Kat on the back of his bike, he races off down the block, turns around, comes tearing back up the street and jumps the bike over Nick’s car, proving that he’s not afraid to take two lives into his hands merely to make a vague statement regarding the unimpressive size of his penis. But it would be awesome if he miscalculated that jump and wiped out completely, splattering himself and Kat all over the pavement while her parents looked on. Geez, sir, I saved your son, but now your daughter is a quadriplegic. My bad. Yup yup.

Milobar: And with that, the movie ends with yet another music video.

Donkey: Mirroring the start of the film, they appear to be in a warehouse somewhere, this time putting on a concert. VI, once again showing the fashion sense of a coked up, colorblind vagrant, is wearing a suit that looks insanely ridiculous. Half the suit is bright orange and the other half is a technicolored nightmare. It’s like he looked at the character Two-Face and said to himself, “not quite gay enough”.

Milobar: “He hasn’t quite arrived at Gaytown. I’ll have to take him the rest of the way.” But seriously, flash forward ten years and put a dude in that outfit and he would fit right into today’s music scene.

Donkey: Speaking of the gayness, these are some very homoerotic dance moves that VI’s doing with another dude. Good for you, Vanilla Ice. Don’t let The Man keep you in the closet. I think it might actually be very appropriate that Kat is just another face in the audience at this point, watching while he grapples with another dude. And as the song comes to an end, we fade to black and the credits roll.

Milobar: I thought Kat was going to college. Did she give that all up for him?

Donkey: Looks like it. And goddamn it did she pick the wrong star to hitch her wagon to.

Milobar: No matter. His horsecock-sucking star is shining brightly tonight.

The Verdict:

Donkey: It’s very, very rare for a star in one medium to cross over into another and garner any respect. Sting, Mick Jagger, Roger Daltrey…these men are champions of classic rock who stand as pillars of the profession, but Dune, Freejack, and the Highlander television series, respectively, won’t exactly be mentioned when discussing their places in history. And if icons of the music industry don’t have a chance, then what the fuck do you think is going to happen when you make a movie around a “star” that’s already at the fourteen minute mark of his fifteen minutes of fame? It turns out that Vanilla Ice is to movies what he is to music. Watching him perform – be it in front of a camera or in front of a microphone – is like driving by a car wreck. You can’t take your eyes away, and yet you come away feeling like that car wreck raped you and then forced you to watch it dance on your grandma’s face. This movie is one moment of insanity after another, until reaching the point that calling it ridiculous is like calling a festering outbreak of herpes a minor roadblock to getting laid. Like so many of the greatest movies that we’ve discussed, it has to be seen to be believed. I give this five shining examples of shame for the white race out of five.

What We Learned:

Donkey: You can buy a shitty bike, you can buy yourself a jacket that shows off that you’re hooked on phonics, and you can buy a toque that makes you look like the proverbial dickhead. But you can’t possibly buy respect when the only currency you have is shitty music and a phenomenal lack of any applicable talent. But please, don’t take my word for it. Keep reaching for those stars, tragedies of American culture!

Don’t forget to check back every Saturday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a scenic journey into the horrors of space, the future, and the face of the Californian political landscape as we attempt to attain…TOTAL RECALL.

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