To me, this movie is perfection.

good back-story, and good acting

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

At the rate things are going, animation rebel Ralph Bakshi may never produce another full-length animated feature, and in this regard, FIRE AND ICE may be the last hurrah for his style of visual storytelling (unless you're a fan of COOL WORLD). It's a striking movie that belongs to a bygone era of experimentation in feature animation, and it's quite deserving of its cult following. It's also a flawed film that loses a little with each viewing, at least in my experience. Bakshi die-hards and animation disciples will probably want to check this one out, but casual viewers will probably have a tougher time being engaged.The story: In a showdown between the kingdoms of ice and fire, a kidnapped princess (voiced by Maggie Roswell) and the lone survivor of a massacred village (William Ostrander) find themselves on a path to dispose of the evil ice lord (Stephen Mendell).Almost any fantasy fan will be able to tell at a glance that the film's visual style is an animated realization of the work of artist Frank Frazetta. To help achieve this feat, Bakshi uses rotoscoping to grand effect. The animation is a lot less awkward than his previous attempts to animate entire casts this way, and it even helps bolster the tone of the film more than once. There are lengthy sequences that go on without dialogue, and these scenes remain engaging through masterfully-rendered body language and facial expressions. This helps enliven the numerous action scenes as well, many of which are heightened by the inclusion of some equally well-rendered beasts and monsters.Nevertheless, the amplitude of adrenaline scenes helps illustrate the movie's major weakness: its story. The filmmakers seem more concerned with simply animating cool things than crafting a fully-rounded tale or building the relationships between characters. Removing the scenes which do not actually advance the plot would probably chop the runtime down to a little less than half its current 81-minute length, and this bulky amount of padding becomes more obvious every time you watch the film. Without exception, the characters are one-dimensional and undergo little development – making the movie less dramatically mature than many modern video games.Bakshi's stylistic choices make it hard not to also examine the movie in a social context, and it's pretty eclectic. For one thing, adherence to the Frazetta style makes this one of the few fantasy flicks I've seen wherein the male characters are almost as sexualized as the females, give the minimalist wardrobe. Hero Larn finds himself in need of rescue several times, and despite the ceaseless efforts of the screenplay to turn her into a damsel, heroine Teegra is a pretty resourceful character. Other depictions are less progressive, though. Ice lord Nekron is pretty unambiguously gay, but his implied homosexuality – specifically, the fact that he finds Teegra undesirable – is presented as an evil attribute. And what can be said about the dark-skinned, animalistic "subhumanoids" other than an acknowledgement of how clearly fantasy often caters to exclusively white audiences?Despite these shortcomings, it's hard to deny the movie's energy and uniqueness. Finding an animated fantasy film of this one's ambition that was produced in the west is still something of an Easter egg hunt – let's face it, there's a good chance that you happened upon this page by chance – and of the handful of ones that you could pick from, you could do worse than FIRE AND ICE. It's a fun adventure, and while I would not recommend an outright purchase, I would suggest that you afford yourself the chance that there's something here you enjoy and give it a rental.

Brave and resourceful young warrior Larn not only vows to gets revenge on the evil Nekron after Nekron murders everyone in his village, but also attempts to rescue the beautiful princess Teegra from Nekron's foul clutches. The rugged and mysterious Darkwolf helps Larn out. Director Ralph Bakshi and noted illustrator Frank Frazetta are to be commended for not making this film a cutesy and wholesome piece of Disneyesque lightweight family fare; instead it's a dark and fairly gritty rough'n'tumble affair with a serious tone, startling moments of savage violence, vigorous and exciting action set pieces, and a funky array of odd and often lethal creatures (Nekron's simian subhuman flunkies in particular are pretty grotesque and detestable). The exquisitely fluid and vivid animation that was done with rotoscoping over live actors and actresses possesses a remarkably lifelike quality. The characters and the dangerous world they inhabit is designed with tremendous flair and imagination, with buff larger-than-life heroes, eminently loathsome baddies, and an incredibly gorgeous and voluptuous damsel in distress who isn't as helpless as she initially appears to be. Moreover, the basic simplicity of the story gives this movie a winningly unpretentious charm: Larn and Teegra make for appealing protagonists, Darkwolf rates as one amazing bad-ass dude, and Nekron sizes up as an exceptionally hateful and arrogant villain. The excellent voice work by the cast warrants extra kudos, with especially fine contributions from Steve Sandor as the formidable Darkwolf, Leo Gordon as kindly king Jarol, and Susan Tyrell as Nekron's venomous witch mother Juliana. Francis Grumman's robust orchestral score hits the rousing spot. William Kraft's crisp cinematography boasts neat occasional use of wipes. An extremely cool and enjoyable flick.

Don't get fooled by the lower rating of this animated movie. This is one of the most under rated animated movies I have seen so far. Just by seeing screen shots, I decided to watch the movie. I thought its rating would be more than 8 and I was quite shocked to see the lower rating here. This movie is totally as I thought it would be. Its a battle between fire and ice, love and hatred, peace and chaos. I like all the main characters including negative character 'Nekron'. All the characters were portrayed beautifully and carefully. The movie was interesting enough to watch in one go without being bored for a moment. It was dramatic, it was romantic, it was passionate and also sometimes violent and cruel; It was epic. Above all, this movie also provides good lesson. I will always remember it as an exceptional great animated movie.

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.