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 an animated sword and sorcery epic from director Ralph Bakshi, and as a film it's a real treat to watch. This movie features unheralded realistic animation of the main characters, achieved by a motion capture process in which real actors were used to capture the movements of the figures, then transformed into 2D drawings. It's very similar to the motion capture used for modern day CGI, but to my mind it's even more effective than that.

The story is a good mix of CONAN THE BARBARIAN style heroic action with QUEST FOR FIRE-style setting and backdrop. The hand-drawn mountains are quite lovely to behold, while the central figures are lithe and realistic, reminiscent of the art of Boris Vallejo. The character of Teegra, for instance, would have delighted any teenage male viewer in terms of her voluptuous realism. The voice work is adequate. The action is intense and visceral, and the bad guys are suitably imposing, with one of them impressive enough to influence cinema until this day (check out HARDCORE HENRY if you don't believe me). Altogether this is a fine experience, and something of an instant favourite of mine.

Queen Juliana rules the ice. She sends glaciers south and her son Nekron to attack with his horde. Larn's village is destroyed by the advance. He survives and escapes south. In Firekeep, Nekron's minions kidnap princess Teegra. Teegra manages to escape and joins Larn. They get separated by a water monster. Teegra is recaptured. Larn is joined by Darkwolf on a journey to battle Nekron.

This is standard Conan-like story written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. Director Ralph Bakshi and illustrator Frank Frazetta join to create this world. Bakshi uses his rotoscoping process. It is an animated sword and sorcery movie. It is Conan without the charisma of Arnold. It works fine especially for fans of this genre.