FIRE AND ICE (1983)
Animated Feature
Article 3767 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-25-2011
Posting Date: 12-7-2011
Directed by Ralph Bakshi
Featuring the voices of Randy Norton, Cynthia Leake, Steve Sandor
Country: USA
What it is: Epic fantasy, sword and sorcery style

The only surviving warrior of a destroyed town tries to save a princess who has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer.

Of the four Ralph Bakshi movies I’ve seen for this series, this is easily the most cohesive stylistically. That’s probably because its intent seems pretty clear, which is to bring a Frank Frazetta painting to life, and since Frazetta himself was present as part of the creative team for the movie, it manages to keep itself focused on that goal. The story is a pretty standard compendium of Sword and Sorcery cliches, but I would imagine that fans of the form would be satisfied; after all, there really hadn’t been a lot of cinematic examples of the subgenre. Still, though it’s often used to good effect her, I did find myself pondering somewhat the limitations of rotoscoping. At any rate, I do think the movie works better than WIZARDS.