User Reviews

When I was a lot younger and 'traditional hand-drawn animation,' to quote Mr. Eisner, wasn't dead, I was a fan of Ralph Bakshi. Sort of the anti-Disney, Bakshi did counter-culture movies like Fritz the Cat (which Robert Crumb hated so much he subsequently killed off the character), Wizards (a midnight movie staple for years), and the unfortunately named Coonskin, which was nearly incomprehensible. Bakshi was a sort of cultural renegade, offering up in animation what no one else could – basically, he made animated films for adults – and following his own warped vision of how things should be. Probably his highest profile work was his 1978 version of Lord of the Rings, a movie I still enjoy to this day. Problem is, aside from Rings, none of Bakshi's films ever made any money, and an attempt to go commercial with 1981's American Pop fizzled (granted, it was an uneven film). Bakshi returned to the genre that he'd done the best with – swords and sorcery – for 1983's Fire and Ice. 70s megastar artist Frank Frazetta designed most of the characters and did a fair amount of pre-production art (some of which, in true Bakshi fashion, shows up in montages in the film). It was a teaming up of the greatest fantasy artist if the day and the only animator who could have brought his stuff to life with any accuracy. The film was scripted by Roy Thomas, famous for working on Marvel Comics' Conan series, and Gerry Conway, another comics writer. That's a lot of genre talent for a small animated film.

Fire and Ice is no classic. It probably marks the pinnacle of rotoscoping and is a beautifully rendered film. There's a scant excuse for a plot and the characters are wafer thin, but the joy of the film is in the design and animation. This one really is eye candy, and I don't know if any of those involved with its creation ever aimed higher than making an animated Frazetta painting. Certainly they achieved that in spades.

Fire and Ice is achingly simple in its set up. Evil Ice Lord Nekron (a Bakshi staple name, used previously in Wizards) uses his magic powers to crush his enemies with a rapidly moving glacier. He also has a bunch of orcs (call them what they are) at his command who wipe out anyone who dodges the ice. Next up on his deep freeze: Fire Keep, run by King Jerol, who controls the lava, etc. The story centers mostly around a young man named Larn, the stereotypical hottie boy with long hair who runs around in a loincloth. After his village is iced, Larn encounters Jerol's ample daughter, Teegra, a Frazetta gal if ever there were one; body by Pamela Anderson, wardrobe by Frederick's of Hollywood. Aside from the pretty pictures, this would have been a forgettable flick if not for the presence of Dark Wolf, a mysterious warrior who's part Batman, part Superman, and all bad-ass. Dark Wolf's fun to watch, and he elevates the movie into the realm of the watchable.

The dialogue is pretty bad and the story is cliché-ridden, but Fire and Ice is still fun in a dopey kind of way. Some of the elements could have made a decent fantasy pulp novel, and a lot of the designs are pretty neat. Bakshi made better films than this (Wizards, Rings) but he made worse, too (most of the rest of his stuff). I wouldn't recommend this for anyone other than Bakshi fans or animation die-hards, or someone who really likes the fantasy genre. But it's light, brainless fun, and in my mind deserves not to be forgotten to the dustbin of obscurity.

June 8, 2004

I loved this as a kid, but seeing it as a 19 year old I did like it but don't love it. While the animation is great, some of the effects have a choppy look to them, but the story and script were the biggest problems. The action scenes are great and I liked the sense of fantasy but overall the story is basically a very overly-simplistic good vs. evil tale. The script is very cheesy and meandering. However, the animation is great, with beautiful backgrounds, strong colours and characters that are reasonably well modelled. The characters are engaging enough, nothing extraordinary, but at least effort is done to make us care for them. The music is both rousing and mystical. The voice acting is good considering what they had to work with. Overall, good but imperfect. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Fire and Ice is Ralph Bakshi's animated vision of Frank Frazetta's fantasy world (who even assisted in the making of this feature). The story is your basic tale of good verse evil; a ruthless sorcerer and his mother are intent on taking over the world, using their power to spawn ice glaciers to achieve this goal. Their last resistance is Fire Keep, a city built around a volcano. Really, the story and characters are kept simple while the showcase of this movie is the animation and action. Bakshi uses a process known as rotoscoping in this film (not his first time though). Rotoscoping is when actors are shot in live action and then later drawn over and added into the backgrounds. Nowadays, you might call it a form of motion capture. Anyway, the effect is actually pretty cool, bringing a certain realism to the characters that is absent from traditional animation. Keeping this in mind, we now come to the action in this movie, of which there is plenty. The movie only takes breaks to set up the next scene of combat for our two warrior heroes. It's often rather brutal, involving swords, spears, axes, and arrows. Aside from taking on gangs of Subhumans (the evil foot soldiers), there are also a few mythical-type creatures to deal with. Fire and Ice is the third Bakshi production I've seen and at that, the best. While I think it could've been better, it's still a fairly fun and entertaining fantasy picture, and I believe that's all it's meant to be. The Limited Edition DVD from Blue Underground does the movie justice with a decent transfer (the video shows some age but the audio is fine) and a few featurettes. There's also a sufficient commentary with Lance Laspina and Bakshi, who comes off as a bit of a jerk. Finally, the set includes Laspina's documentary, Frazetta: Painting with Fire.

By the way, for those in the know, John would love Princess Teegra, a voluptuous, scantly-clad lady right out of one of Frazetta's pictures!

I first saw this film way back, probably when I was 7 or 8 years old and it impressed me then as it does now. I'm a fan of animation in general be it anime, American animation or otherwise. The beautiful animation of this film holds up well even today in our age of computer animated everything. In fact, every new animated film that comes out uses the same tried and true crappy looking mix of CGI and animation and to be honest, I'm tired of it. I miss those days of hand painted, hand drawn animation. This is a fine example of bygone days where animation got along just fine without the use of bad looking CGI and computer overlayed animation. This is an excellent film and anyone at all interested in fantasy, D&D or just animation in general should most definitely find yourself a copy of this film.

-Daguon

Picked up the movie at the flea market for 4 bucks, sure did get my moneys worth!. Could care-less about the hot babes but the animation just blew me away after a steady diet of Simpsons (Sorry Mr. Groening). The best part, facial expressions. Recommend multiple viewings with some cool tunes, good friends and a couple of cold ones!

With Ralph Bakshi most of his films appear to be like two-edged swords. You'll get something awesome out of it but only if you put up with the silly and the unnecessarily cheezy. The Lord of the Rings was a great adaptation of the story which perhaps didn't always shine in the animation department.

Fire and Ice is a great achievement from Bakshi from an animation point of view. The rotoscoping is a lot more detailed and the animation has a vibrant look to it. You still get some of the dull still-cells and slightly blurred background paintings but on the over-all the look has definitely gotten better since Bakshi's last fantasy epic. The animation has almost a realistic-naturalistic style to it, and unlike in LOTR where this style was often at odds with the actual content, here it enhances the film's unique atmosphere.

Unfortunately the film fails to create a meaningful story out of its simple setting and in fact most of the characters' motivations are pretty blurred. Lorn and Tigra are easy cases but even the main villain Necron was difficult to follow not to mention That Guy with Furry Face Mask (also known as just 'That Guy'). Even though most of the voice actor's were appropriate, there are some odd quirks in the audio-department and Tigra especially sounds really terrible whenever she's screaming.

However, I believe the film's inherent entertainment value outweighs its unnecessarily silly execution of the plot-line. The scant clad of the characters is something you'll never get over but it helps you remind yourself that perhaps this film isn't even intended to be taken too seriously. It's still a hella cool and really funny.

I was pretty impressed with the graphics and animation of Fire and Ice. It was very nice to see some decent, colorful and somewhat simple animation for a change. I thought that the artists took their time to display to their audiences what they really wanted to show. They did not overdo it and made it exciting at the same time. It was a classic battle of good versus evil with some twists and turns throughout the storyline, but I would not have expected anything lesser from these artists. The story moved very well and I would recommend it to some of my other friends. It was very nice to see how the plot ended. I was not really surprised, but somewhat relieved. Check it out!!!

I had watched snippets from this as a kid but, while I purchased Blue Underground's set immediately due to its being a Limited Edition, only now did I fit it in my viewing schedule - and that's mainly because Bakshi's American POP (1981) just turned up on late-night Italian TV (see my review of that film below)!

Anyway, I found the film to be a quite good sword-and-sorcery animated epic with especially impressive-looking backdrops (the rather awkward rotoscoped characters were, admittedly, less so) with a rousing if derivative score. The plot, again, wasn't exactly original, but proved undeniably engaging on a juvenile level and the leading characters well enough developed - especially interesting is the villainous Ice-lord Nekron and the enigmatic warrior Darkwolf; the hero and heroine, however, are rather bland stereotypes - but one can hardly complain when Bakshi and Frazetta depict the girl as well-endowed (her bra could be torn off any second) and half-naked to boot (her tiny panties are forever disappearing up her ass)! Still, it's clearly an action-oriented piece and it certainly delivers on this front (that involving Darkwolf being particularly savage); the final showdown though brief, is also nicely handled and sees our heroes astride pterodactyls assaulting the villains' lair inside a cave .

In the long run, apart from the afore-mentioned Frazetta backdrops, the main appeal of this movie for me now is its nostalgia factor as it transported me back to my childhood days of watching not just films like CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) and THE BEASTMASTER (1982) but also animated TV series such as BLACKSTAR (1981-82) and HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1983-85).

As for the accompanying THE MAKING OF "FIRE AND ICE" (TV) (Mark Bakshi, 1982) **1/2:

Vintage featurette on the sword-and-sorcery animated film which is only available via the washed-out VHS print owned by Ralph Bakshi himself! It goes into some detail about the rotoscope technique and also shows several instances of live-action 'performances' (in a studio) of segments from the script - which would then be traced, blended in with the backgrounds and filmed. Still, having watched several such behind-the-scenes featurettes on the art of animation (on the Disney Tins and the Looney Tunes sets, for instance), it's doesn't make for a very compelling piece...

I own Ralph Bakshis forgotten masterpiece Fire & Ice on an old OOP rental videotape.

Well for one thing, this is better than any other Conan-esque film you'll ever see. Sure, it's cheesy, but who cares? It stood the test of time, and the only way it started to look cheesy is in comparisons to modern fantasy epics like LOTR:FOTR (though I love that film.)

The plot goes like this: After a battle between Fire & Ice, a kings daughter is kidnapped by Jarols (Ice) subhuman creatures, while a sole survivor of a victimized village rescues her.

Yeah it doesn't sound as a original as Nurse Betty, but that's not the point. It is really to bring to life an interesting idea of a world of two enemies: Fire & Ice. And it succeeds.

As for the action scenes: superb. They are well handled, have terrific suspence, and have plenty of loud noises. Just check out the climatic battle, now THAT'S an ending!

The acting and dialogue: competent. Really. They aren't gonna be nominated for an Oscar, but they are OK and don't get on your nerves.

The animation is quite good. Shot on 3D and rotoscoped (I THINK), it looks pretty good. A lot of the backgrounds look really detailed and well drawn, and although the character designs feel a little 1-dimentional, they are OK.

Overall, this is a fine neglected little gem and will entertain you more than any of the superfical "entertainment". 10/10

But then, it is twenty years old. I recall watching it not long after it came out and recently managed to get hold of a copy to revisit my youth.

Well......I can see why I liked it, back then. I still like it now, though a more cynical eye now spots things I ignored then.

The animation is simplistic with no shading, just block colours for the characters and the backgrounds are often very simply done. The rotoscoping is pretty neatly done, though.

Despite these shortcomings the thing that really lets Fire and Ice down is the script. It just lacks any real imagination which, considering it's a fantasy film, is a real shame. The story is simple and extremely predictable. Place names likewise make little sense and are more than a little juvenile. For instance, the evil Ice King lives in erm...Ice Peak, whilst his opposite, the Fire King, lives in er...Fire Keep. Real imaginative stuff.

The version I saw recently had a few odd jumps in the story, which could have been smoothed out with a little more care in the editing room. But otherwise the film is enjoyable enough for a rainy day.

Let me say something first: The world of animation owes a great deal to Ralph Bakshi. He was one of those who constantly fought against the limitations of the medium; maybe some kind of anti-Disney. Animation as we know it today would be a lot poorer without Bakshi (without Disney too, of course). Now, as important as Bakshi is for the medium, the sad thing about his career is that nearly all of his projects seem half-finished at best; even if they made it to the big screen many of his films are uneven rides. The one exception (in my opinion) is "Fire and Ice", a fantasy flick with some really good animation and high quality from start to finish. The character designs are based on Frazetta (good choice) and the animation often rotoscoped, therefor realistic.

Now - why then do I give it only 4 out of 10?! Answer: The story is so weak you basically have to turn off the speakers to enjoy the pictures. They took some Frazetta drawings and put them on film without filling them with character or life. Then they wrote a story so these cardboard "characters" had to move around so they could show off some cool animation. It's truly mind-boggling how much work they put into this, instead of filming something like, say, a "Dragonriders of Pern"-story.

Recommended for animation nuts (like myself)

Why this movie has all but disappeared into obscurity is an absolute crime. "Conan" is perhaps the only Sword and Sorcery movie better. The brutal violence, cool character designs, and good pacing, make this one of the best fantasies around. It is certainly the greatest animated movie aimed at a more adult audience that I have ever seen. This is not similar to Bakshi's usual frenetic style. It's quite a departure for Bakshi, and in my opinion his best work. I hope that this film gets the recognition it deserves.

The title of my review says it all. I saw the movie yesterday and I enjoyed it but...

BUT...

The movie was - in fact - extremely stupid. And by saying "extremely stupid" I am actually being nice. I mean, it looks like a great fantasy adventure, it is very well animated, the action scenes are absolutely great...

Sadly, the screenplay is absolutely horrible. It really is. 'Fire and Ice' is probably the most terribly written animated movie that I have ever seen, and I have sen a lot. The dialogue is just horrible. I saw the movie like 13 hours ago and I can barely remember what the characters were saying, and what I do remember is a few lines that sounded like they came straight out of some gamebook like the "Fighting Fantasy" books written by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. The characterization... Well... There is just no such thing here. All characters depend on the way they were drawn, not on the way they were written. The "I Am Blonde And Brave" hero, the "I Am Here Just Because I Am Naked" princess, the "I Have Covered My Face With A Mask For No Reason At All And I Have An Ax" masked man with the ax, the "Look How Evil I Am MUHAHAHA" villain... You would know pretty much everything about every single character in the movie as soon as you saw them.

The setting certainly looks nice. Everything is perfectly drawn. BUT... Well, if you are less than 14 years old boy you are probably going to love it. There are DINOSAURS! There is A KRAKEN! There are ORCS! There are AZTEC BUILDINGS!!! What is not to like? Well... It is just absurd. It looks nice but these things just don't go well together. Actually I would love it if it was relevant to the story but it just wasn't. The kraken, for example, appeared for less than a minute and it didn't add anything to the story. The Aztec buildings were there just because they look beautiful and for no other reason at all - no one event entered any of them. Etc.

Now... I am going to stop with the criticisms and I am going to write what I liked about the movie. There is really a lot to be liked, especially when it comes to the quality of the animation. At that time there was no CGI-magic and everything had to be drawn by hand. Yet the characters are very detailed and their moves are extremely smooth. One can rarely see so well animated sword battles even in the finest Japanese anime movies. They move like real, living people, and by saying that I am not exaggerating at all. The fights are masterfully choreographed, the stunts are just stunning, and combined with the beautifully looking set designs the effect is just breathtaking. If that is what you like, see the movie. But if you want good characters, story and dialogue, look somewhere else. Really.

Forget "Wizards", this is the best Ralph Bakshi ever has given! Using Frank Frazetta's characters and art, he created this beautiful and stunning epic that has more life and interest than any other movie he has done. Wheras "Wizards" just is confusing and way too cartoonish to be taken seriously, "Fire and Ice" never shows any humor or cartoonish elements. It is simply a straight foward and to-the-point action cartoon. It also is a bit deeper and interesting than most of the other "sword and sorcery" movies in the 80s. Definately recommended!!!!

Fire and Ice, directed by Ralph Bakshi', is one of those rare adult oriented animated movies that never really took off into mainstream popularity. The plot in this movie is also not one of it's strenghts, which is pretty indicative of animated movies from that time period, it serves it's purpose just fine as a good vs evil tale. But the story is not the main drive force behind what makes this movie works but the fluid animation, the mysterious (albeit somewhat bland) characters and the stunning matte painting backgrounds are what this movie truly delivers on. While not having the smoothest animation throughout, there are some scenes which are truly a sight to behold for a movie this old and the use of rotoscope was also an interesting feature (altough very noticable in the movie itself). Well worth the watch!

The hero, the damsel in distress - what more do you need? Does it matter that it is animated? Hopefully not, because you'd be missing out on a really good fantasy movie. Looking through the extras I was not at all surprised that Frazetta, one of the two man responsible for this, also is responsible for Conan. You can see that existing in the same universe and all that.

But this is more "kid" or rather family friendly. Although it does not shy away to portray a womans bossom (breast) as developed as some grown man would like it to be. It's not the easiest writing stuff as PC friendly as possible, because humor is sometimes not translated well or is not seen in the written form by some. Having said all that, if you are too PC, you may have issues with some themes of the movie and depictions of characters. If not, just enjoy the adventure and the very fine animation, especially for the time it was created.

Fire and Ice I would recommend to lovers of sword and sorcery fantasy stories (Conan-style) and geeks of the animation business. If you belong to one or both groups, Fire and Ice is a movie you will enjoy and should put on your watchlist.

Two major artistic talents, controversial animator / filmmaker Ralph Bakshi ("Fritz the Cat") and renowned illustrator Frank Frazetta conceived this traditional fantasy quest. It doesn't tell a particularly *great* story, necessarily, but it is quite entertaining, and cuts to the chase readily. Its fast pacing results in a slick 82 minute run time, and its classic hand-drawn animation is noteworthy for the way that it was drawn over live action footage, resulting in movement that's more realistic than one might ordinarily see.

A kingdom is in danger of being dominated by power-mad villainess Juliana (voice of Susan Tyrrell, "Forbidden Zone") and her equally demented son Nekron (voice of Stephen Mendel, "Scanner Cop II"). The many "sub human" minions of Nekron abduct Teegra (voice of Maggie Roswell, 'The Simpsons'), the shapely daughter of peaceable ruler King Jarol (voice of Leo Gordon, "The Haunted Palace"). In Teegras' attempt to get back home, she falls in with a lone warrior named Larn (voice of William Ostrander, "Christine"), and he in turn makes friends with a mystical character named Darkwolf (performed and voiced by beefy Steve Sandor, "Bonnie's Kids").

This is all very pleasing to look at, with some inventive design. It's basically on a par with standard live-action versions of this sort of story, except that since it's animated, the filmmakers don't have to worry about trying to pull off effects practically, and they can let their imagination run wild. It's more violent and sexy than some people might expect, but is still tame compared to what one might see in live action. You do have to admire the writers (comic book veterans Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway) for contriving a way to keep Teegra in a bikini for the vast majority of that running time.

You add to that mix some entertaining vocalizations (especially by Tyrrell), and a variety of cool animals and monsters, and it amounts to pretty good entertainment for the fantasy genre.

Seven out of 10.

This animation has a very simple and straightforward good vs. evil plot and is all about action. What sets it apart from other animation is how well the human movements are animated. It was really beautiful seeing the fleeing woman running around on the screen from left to right and look around, her movements were done so well. Why don't they use this rotoscopic technique more these days? It's quite effective.

Fire and Ice, in it's prehistoric setting and scarcely dressed women, was clearly devoted to showing the beautiful damsel in distress in various sexy ways, her voluptuous body serving as pure eyecandy. Some may hate this and regard it as yet another moronic male sexual fantasy, others (including plenty of women) will adore it's esthetic quality. I for sure did not mind! Bakshi just loves animating lushious, voluptuous babes, as can also be seen in Cool World, and I don't think he has to apoligize since it's pretty much animation for adults. But I had also enjoyed this animation as a child and I never forgot it.

This one was just special, so different from the standard Disney or Anime fare, and for that reason alone well worth the watch since it's possibly Bakshi's finest. For those who like animations with lushious women: try Space Adventure Cobra as well.

I give Fire and Ice 8 out of 10.

If you've seen the animation of The Lord of The Rings, you'll recognise the artwork and animation style instantly, as it comes from the same hand - that of Ralph Bakshi. The rotoscoped cell animation style makes for a strangely realistic action, which, when set against the beautifully hand-painted backgrounds can be write mesmerising. Definitely aimed at older teens and adults. Some superb fight sequences are just about enough to keep you watching through the less than pacey story, although the representation of women, particularly the female lead, is rather exploitative and a bit uncomfortable for anyone with an gram of respect for women. I don't think I'd recommend to anyone other than those with an artistic or historic interest in animation.

Bakshi roto-scoped this one to death. He might as well have used live actors.

Sure it looks great, but I lost interest about halfway through. The sword battles were just not enough to cover for the flaws.

The story it self wasn't bad. And Ralphie's father problems rear their head here again. Check the look in the eye of the Warrior son when his King father orders him on a suicide mission to save the Daughter princess. They have NEVER been more up front. And they weren't exactly hidden in Bakshi's others either.

The Frazzeta influence was a nice touch here. Being a fan, I enjoyed that. It's a great looking film at least. But it needed more action I thought. It seemed like a old issue of "Savage Sword Of Conan" at times.

Sword and Sorcery fans will like it. So might Frazzeta fans. Bakshi fans may be a little disappointed.

Rent it only.

Better than any of the 100 million dollar budget 'fantasy' films that have been released of the the last 10 years. Mature, nostalgic animation done well.

In reality I'd give it a 7/8 out of 10 but as the score was so low I gave it a 10 to help push it up.

Saw this on Amazon Prime UK.

The racist undertones of this film are obvious enough, that, although I didn't notice it back in the 80's when I initially saw this film, it is really impossible to just dismiss those glaring indications...without being morally bankrupt. And if someone who is racist saw this film, well, they obviously wouldn't dismiss those indications; they would embrace them. And, inevitably, make bigoted remarks justifying them, too.

I have heard others talk about & make reference to the racist bigotry in this film; but, I never heard anything from the creators of this film, Ralph Bakshi & Frank Frazetta, themselves talk about character development, about why the characters are set-up the way that they are, what inspirations for the characters did they have & use to mold & develop the characters, etc. I've seen clips of Ralph Bakshi being interviewed, about his career in general; but, I haven't seen anything specific about Fire & Ice. And I have seen nothing but fan-made crap about Frank Frazetta; and only on YT. I have seen no interviews with Frank Frazetta. At all. I am agitated, further, by this - because, overall, the animation, the story, the voice acting was all quite well done in this film.

A documentary would be nice...

I first saw this when I was around 7. I remembered what I believed to be a vague outline of what took place. Turns out now, 15 years later, that I remembered everything with great accuracy because it seems the writers never got beyond making an outline to the story. There is no plot to this movie/cartoon. There is no character development, no back story, no character arcs, nothing. The good guys do things because they are good, while the bad guys do things solely because they are bad. One unintentionally hilarious part is when someone who you would think to be important dies and nobody cares in the least. They just shrug their shoulders and move on. There's barely any dialogue either. If you cut out the fight scenes and the running scenes, you lose 70% of the movie.

Watch this because you want to see some good animation and for no other reason. Or if you like to look at scantily clad hot cartoon chicks (or scantily clad hot cartoon dudes).