Fire and Ice Reviews

As in two previous films, LORD OF THE RINGS (1978) and AMERICAN POP (1981), Bakshi employs "rotoscope," using live models as the armatures for the animated characters. The seventh of his animated pictures, FIRE AND ICE exploits the popularity of his coproducer, comic-book and poster artist Frank Frazetta, with its trademark heroic figures and Gustav Dore-like composition. The plot is basic good-versus-evil in a mythic prehistoric time, in a land peopled by subhuman creatures and their masters, the blue-eyed muscle boys and voluptuous, lightly clad women. The major weapons are glaciers, invoked and mobilized by powerful wizard Nekron (Sean Hannon/Stephen Mendel). The childish narrative, doubtless inspired by a spate of similar duds such as CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982), is marred by poor story continuity and terrible transitions.