Review of Fire and Ice (1983) by Todd F — 02 Sep 2011

"Fire and Ice" is an odd Fantasy film from an even odder director, Ralph Bakshi. An evil sorcerer named Nekron and his evil queen/mother use his powers to attack the land of Fire Keep, or something like that. Honestly, if it weren't for the work of famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, this whole affair probably wouldn't be worth watching.

This reminds me a lot of the animated "Heavy Metal". It's not vulgar like "Heavy Metal". And, although there's not a lot of nudity, the characters are as scantily clad as possible. I'm not trying to sound uptight, it's just pretty easy to see why many would find this novel.

The whole thing is pretty much pointless. There's a lot of bad guys chasing around a girl with a dental floss bikini and a pony-tailed brave in a loincloth. For serious Fantasy genre fans, this has got to be a letdown. There's just not much that happens.

The animation style is about 90% rotoscoped with very little that is fully hand-drawn. Rotoscoping always makes me wonder what the point is. Trying to make animation look true-to-life seems like it's defeating the purpose. Disney did a lot of rotoscoping, too. But it looks much better than anything you'll find in "Fire and Ice".

I actually liked this a little more than I should have, largely because of Frazetta's involvement.