Sometimes in life we are blessed with amazing collaboration projects where two amazing artists in their respected fields come together and birth something so great it doesn’t make sense that it could be real. This, however, is not the case with Fire & Ice, while we do have two brilliant and groundbreaking artists in their respective fields. When legendary animator Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Wizards, Lord of the Rings animated movie) and legendary artist Frank Frazetta teamed up together, no one could have fathomed that Fire & Ice was going to be a total bust. While technically Fire & Ice is a failure of these two giants collaborating, it really isn’t a total failure. It certainly doesn’t deliver on any of the points in which the movie is supposed to, meaning it’s not the serious fantasy film with trademark nudity and killing. It does make good on the nudity and there is a lot of killing, yet it falls being at all serious. Instead, it quickly turns into something to laugh at. So, if you’re looking for a good laugh from a movie that tries way too hard, look no further!
Let’s dive into the beginning of this trainwreck… I mean great fantasy film. The movie’s plot focuses on Queen Juliana and her son, Nekron, plotting to take over the world. They start with putting their ice fortress in “The North” and from there they plan on taking the world for their own with giant glaciers and it is also how they take over the first village which happens to belong to Larn (we will meet him again in a few minutes). Now, here is where things start getting good, Nekron decides that where this small village is, is where his ice fortress will be. Now, the way that Nekron destroys the village in their path is by sending his minions to the village to clean up after the glaciers smash the village to pieces and he uses his powers to control the glaciers and has a glacier orgasm all over the village. Let me repeat this, the man destroys Larns village by cumming giant ice rocks on it with his mind.
Things only get better (and by that, I mean worse) and before we continue it should be known that the animation in this movie is astounding, the plot and dialog make the movie so confusing and just leave you at some points going “why did they do that?” After destroying the village Nekron sends his men to talk to King Jarol of the Fire Keep where Nekron wants Jarol to surrender the keep to him. Jarol refuses and Nekron’s men capture a very naked Teegra, King Jarol’s daughter. Now stated before this movie gets confusing and this the part that lost me completely. Nekrons men lose Teegra and spend the next 45 minutes of this movie chasing her through a creepy swamp, while this seems like a long time to be chasing someone, this is where we meet up with Larn again! Larn comes to Teegra’s rescue when escapes from Nekcron’s men and they team up to get Teegra back to Fire Keep. Except that would be way too easy to get her to safety and they end up out running the bad guys and fall into a pool while playing rough housing with each other and hey end up getting attacked but a giant squid (because we don’t have enough problems let’s add a giant squid. Also, a squid in a swamp, yeah that makes sense.) Larn gets captured by the squid and dragged under while Teegra get to dry land but she ends up getting captured again (honestly not a surprise at this point). While Teegra is off with the gang of creepy looking dudes that can’t stop staring at her Larn manages to free himself and beat the hell out of the squid by poking his eye out. He manages to make it to land then passes out and when he wakes up he is greeted by this strange handsome cat mask wearing badass.
Meet Darkwolf… seriously this guy is a major badass, you find out literally nothing out about this guy the entire movie and think you hear his name once, (spoiler: this guy beats the hell out of Nekron). So, this hooded badass decides he is going to help Larn and somehow knows that Nekron is behind whatever Larn is going through, seriously the plot and dialog is so bad. Magically Darkwolf knows Nekron is behind Teegras capture and helps Larn to find her in his quest to stop Nekron and his mother.
Meanwhile, we find Teegra, who escapes the minions and finds a witch that seduces her, only to find out she’s wanted by Nekron. The witch has a major freak out for no reason at all and tells her redheaded ogre helper to fetch Nekrons men and that they will have to pay for her. Instead they end up killing her and her ogre helper and blowing up their hut. Now why this is in the movie we will never know, it adds absolutely nothing but a laugh that this witch thinks she’s so tough and gets set on fire. Teegra yet again gets captured and brought to Nekrons mother who brings her to Nekron as his bride. Which doesn’t go over well and he refuses to have a bride ever (don’t tell me what to do mom)!
Okay to sum this movie up Larn and Badass Darkwolf (his actual name) go to the Ice Fortress and track down Teegra with the help of King Jarol. In the ice keep there is a lot of killing (lets be honest there is a lot of killing through the entire movie) but there is an epic end fight scene between Nekron and Darkwolf who end up destroying Nekron like and absolute boss thus bringing peace back to the world. The action is great but at the same time insanely cheesy and Nekron has the best line to Darkwolf which is ‘WHY. WON’T. YOU. DIE.” To which Darkwolf responds with and epic sword thrust through Nekrons chest which looks like it does when someone gets stabs on stage in a cheap stage production (the sword sits in-between his arm and body).
It saddens me that that is the end because there are so many other great weird things that happen in this movie. However, what we’ve gone over here is still great, so weird, and so cheesy that it causes so many good laughs. Yes, this movie failed in so many ways, but it is beyond hilarious. I definitely recommend you watch it for a good laugh.
