Fire and Ice (1983)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Ralph Bakshi

Writers:

Ralph Bakshi (characters)
Gerry Conway (screenplay)

Release Date:

26 August 1983 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Fantasy | Adventure

Tagline:

Heroic, Fantasy Adventure! [Video Australia]

Plot:

In this animated tale, a tiny village is destroyed by a surging glacier, which serves as the deadly domain for the evil Ice Lord...

Plot Keywords:

Ice | Warrior | Wizard | Rotoscoping | Psychopath

Cast

Randy Norton	...	Larn
Cynthia Leake	...	Teegra
Steve Sandor	...	Darkwolf
Sean Hannon	...	Nekron
Leo Gordon	...	Jarol
William Ostrander	...	Taro / voice of Larn
Eileen O'Reill	...	Juliana
Elizabeth Lloyd Shaw	...	Roleil
Micky Morton	...	Otwa
Tamarah Park	...	Tutor
Big Yank	...	Monga
Greg Wayne Elam	...	Pako (as Greg Elam)
Jimmy Bridges	...	Subhuman (as James Bridges)
Shane Callan	...	Subhuman
Archie Hamilton	...	Subhuman

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

West Germany:12 | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) (DVD rating) | Canada:14A (Manitoba) (DVD rating) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Finland:K-12 | Australia:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG | Argentina:Atp

Filming Locations:

Aspen, Colorado, USA

Company:

PSO

Trivia:

In a cut scene from the script, Darkwolf was revealed to be Nekron's father.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Frazetta: Painting with Fire (2003)

A bit underdeveloped, but mildly entertaining.

I remember Siskel and Ebert trashing this film as being overly long and uninvolving; meaning that it's overly long for what films of this genre and type are expected to deliver (in terms of action), but ultimately fail with their implied promise. I remember them showing a snippet of the film (one of the few action sequences) before going on to cite the films negative points. Ah memories...

Their primary critique was a lack of action. Myself, I did agree with their point about the film being rather tedious, but it still had a certain kind of artistic flair in terms of the painted backgrounds. So, in this respect, it's kind of a double edged sword. I mean, you pay good money to see both action and art, but can one makeup for the lack of the other? "Fire and Ice" tries, and, in my opinion, is moderately successful at this. But I do have to agree with the dynamic duo that this film, for all its animated gloss, could've used more "stuff" (for lack of a better term). And by stuff I don't necessarily mean action, but just hard raw story material. I mean, we know this is supposed to take place around the stone age (or a time thereafter), but if the characters speak near perfect North American English, then certainly they can utter more dialogue early on. We never really get a chance to know them nor their thoughts until nearly midway through the second act, and by then the film's already taken it's own course.

Even so, you can't take films like this too seriously, and for all of Ebert's and Siskel's education and cinematic observance and aplomb, I think they were a bit overly harsh. The film wasn't meant to be anything more than a fantasy comic book. Even so their point about a lack of development of the characters and plot is well taken. For all their ferocity the audience is never really clued in as to what the whole story is all about. By that I mean what beef the main characters have with one another.

The animation, for what it is, is mostly good, but not always. The final climatic scenes, particularly some of the lava shots, are very stilted. There's a distinct lack of inbetweens used as animated lava splashes from one point to the next in a backhanded nostalgic homage to "Clutch Cargo". You'd think they would've caught that early on. The animators and production team en large must have been under a deadline when they came to that sequence, because it's one of the worst in the piece.

"Fire and Ice" has the novel of being an animated fantasy film meant for more mature audiences. It's garnished a kind of cult following, but not to the same degree as other similar films (of which there're very few). Again it's largely due to a lack of development. People, even those who don't have PhDs in cinema, know on an instinctive level when a film is missing its salient parts. Hence why so-called "good" or high-art films often get panned by mainstream audiences, and why B-movie extravaganzas often garnish a cult following; like "Fire and Ice".

For all its basic flaws and fundamental film making foibles, "Fire and Ice" is what it is, and, in a no-brainer kind of way, be enjoyed by folks who like simple sword and sorcery fluff with a touch of bloodshed. But it's one of those films where you have to be in tune with the pre-classic era mythos; a fantastical time and place before writing, the Greeks and Hammurabi, but after a good portion of mankind had come to know language and other artifacts of civilization. That sort of post stone-age but pre-copper-age time frame. Where men carried prototype swords or over-sized battle-axes, and all women were busty and curvaceous.

It's been ages since I really had a good viewing of this film, and now that I got my special edition DVD I'm not sorry I spent the money on it. For even if Siskel and Ebert were right about this film (and they are) I still happen to like it. Then again I'm a sucker for these kinds of flicks.