It's up to you how much of this thing you actually want to watch. I say “thing” because it in no way qualifies as a movie. It's more of a mash-up of mildly multi-racial 90's breakfast snack commercials, C + C Music Factory videos, and total nonsense, with a little Steven Seagal thrown in, e.g. lazy man's fighting in customized jackets.
In Ice's case, whose character in the film is a “teen” called “Johnny”, the jacket is over sized black pleather with the words “Lust”, “Danger”, “Sex”, “Dancer” and, Jim Jarmusch will be happy to learn, “Down by Law” appliqued all over it. Oh, yeah — and it also says “Yep Yep” on the shoulder, which is apparently a catch phrase of the man's because he says it many times throughout the film.
The story is as thin as an episode of Zack and Cody: the Suite Life, Lizzie McGuire, Boy Meets World (take your pick depending on your generation). There's a kidnapping sub-plot that Vanilla solves in both the laziest way possible (by brilliantly managing to recognize a sound he heard mere hours before), and the most inexplicable way possible (riding his crotch rocket up several flights of stairs — silently).
Most of the running time is devoted either to musical montages (some quite romantic) or a critique, from the artist's point, of nerdy and up-tight white Americans, all of whom stand around dazed and slack jawed at the very sight of Vanilla Ice and his crew of neutered urban dancers. It's very hard to take criticism leveled at the “squares” too seriously when it comes from a shirtless man wearing unbuckled shortalls emblazoned with the words “Oh Yeah” on the butt (“Oh Yeah” is purposefully stitched upside down on the inside so that it's readable when the shortalls are unbuckled at the top and hang from the waist) and a black fanny pack. Yep, yep.
I believe that this really is how he viewed the world, only he assumed that everyone was staring in awe and respect rather than complete dumbfoundedness. If you don't believe he was delusional, just take a look at the poster. It's almost cute the way it says, “Starring in his First Motion Picture” as if there were actually more to come.
I want to say I'm sorry to Kristin Minter who plays the love interest “Kat” A/K/A “College Girl”. What a horrible way to begin and end a career; between the fleshy legs of Robert Van Winkle on a neon yellow crotch rocket in the desert clad in a stone-washed jean jacket and a sunflower dress with a pair of biker shorts underneath (remember when girls used to do that?).
I want to expressly say that I'm not sorry to Naomi Campbell, who opens up the “movie” with this “song”. I think it's unfair that this performance is never brought up in articles about how she beats up hired help.
I'd like to conclude this entry the same way Vanilla Ice ends the movie — no not in a suit that cannot be explained, but with these profound words of wisdom: “I am O-U-T, out and forget all that peace stuff cause I ain't wit it!”
But what do you think?