Popular reviews

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 12

  There is no narrative reason for the predatory lesbian-coded witch with the giant caveman servant/slave except salacious homophobia; there were so many better ways that character could have been used in the story, not the least of which is to just not have her be sapphic. But Bakshi is nothing if not thorough in his patriarchal antagonism. Every shot of Teegra emphasizes her breasts or ass, and in more than one scene, the camera doesn't even bother glancing at her face. The story contrives to shove her in small spaces so that her body is partially exposed, leaving her ass on display, and at no point does she wear much more than a very skimpy bikini. If she were a…

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  Review by Tears_in_Rain ★★★½ 6

  Sword and sorcery was a difficult genre to adapt into live-action films in the 80s. I'm talking, in particular, about the kinds of stories written by the likes of Robert E. Howard, or Michael Moorcock. Films adapted from these stories would have required exorbitant budgets, which is why so many of the sword and sorcery films we did get, feel watered down in comparison to their literary inspiration. There was only so much they could do with the resources they had available. One potential solution to this problem is the usage of animation, rather than live-action. With animation, one is limited only by what the artists can draw, or paint, though it is still a laborious and time-consuming endeavor. With…

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  Review by pd187 ★★★★ 10

  when the 2 loincloth/buttfloss leads stood on a cliff griping about the cold i wanted one of the robed dudes to walk up like. hey guys ever heard of a SHIRT

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  Review by justin anastasio ★★½ 1

  sometimes a guy just needs to rotoscope, like, a ton of ass

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  Review by Ben Hibburd ★★★½ 12

  "Fire and Ice" is an adult fantasy film from the mind of Ralph Bakshi. The film sees the evil Lord Nekron advance his palace/land of ice across the kingdom, destroying villages and settlements in the process. The only hope of stopping him comes in the form of King Jarol, a benevolent leader whose keep is situated on top of a volcano holding back an ocean of fire.

  This is basically like a cinematic campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. The film is filled with scantily clad women, ripped muscular men, weird deformed minions, wizardry, giant killer octopus, flying dragonhawks, the list goes on.

  "Fire and Ice" is a fun, briskly paced genre film. It's one part "Conan", one part "Skyrim" and…

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  Review by MrSneakyMan ★★ 7

  The thing that really cripples this movie is the fact that the two main protagonists spend 90% of their screentime running away from shit. Quickly advancing glaciers, falling chunks of ice, sub-human savages, big dinosaur looking things, more sub-human savages, giant sea beasts, even more fucking sub-human savages. If it appears and it might be threatening, they run away.

  That shit gets old real fucking fast.

  Then the coolest character in the whole movie shows up. His name is Darkwolf. That's him standing on the rock in the poster. And when he shows up, he goes full Conan The Barbarian on everyone's asses. He charges into huge groups of enemies, slaughtering them two or three at a time. Unstoppable. Then…

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  Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★½ 4

  Cinematic Time Capsule
  1983 Marathon - Film #18

  "If you’re gonna kill the Ice Lord, boy... you better learn to live with pain"

  Giant lizards and dragons and squids, Oh MY!

  Great glaciers of doom! There’s trouble brewing in a faraway land where clothing has become super scarce and ape-like creatures have abducted Jarol’s beautiful daughter! Now, it’s up to a young warrior named Larn to try and keep his loin cloth on just long enough to save her.

  By the power of Conan’s cash-cow, Ralph Bakshi brings us this sword and sorcery tale that contains all the horniness and violence a VHS loving adolescent could have ever wished for…

  ”The next time you present me with one of your little sluts, mother dear, I’ll squash you like a bug!”

  
  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1983 Ranked

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  Review by London ★½

  Fire and Ice is a very racist and homophobic endeavor to get through, one that I hope to god comes just from blissful ignorance and not actual hatred. But it's pretty uncomfortable to watch. The "subhumans" or "savages" are just humans that have a much darker skin tone and speak a different language. But in the film they are made the aggressors, and at the end when the film wants to be like "we have to move on and become better people" it's the white man that does it.

  Even ignoring that, the film just isn't good anyway. The animation, with the help of rotoscoping, is great for action scenes. Everything feels realistic in the movements of attacks. The music…

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  Review by MushiMinion ★★★ 1

  Fire and Ice is deeply flawed on a script level, but it will be a visual treat for anyone with nostalgic feelings towards the era of Filmation cartoons. What Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta developed is essentially the most violent, sex-fueled episode of He-Man ever.

  And yes, there absolutely is a market for that.

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  Review by Joe ★★★

  This is clearly supposed to be a thrilling action-adventure in the Hollywood tradition, and perhaps in a more beautiful world it would have touched off a new era of feature film animation, one not bound by the standards of children's entertainment and marketing. But it's hard to imagine an audience (of children or otherwise) being excited by this in the conventional sense - Bakshi's animation and Frazetta's art are beautiful to look at, but they lack a certain immediacy, making the action scenes seem like after-the-fact recreations rather than anything with a visceral or emotional impact.

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  Review by PT99 ★★★

  Uncomfortable undertones laid as bare as the characters' ass cheeks.

  6/10

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  Review by Yo_Roboto ★★★★ 5

  Incredible animation. Really nothing quite like it. It’s a borderline idiotic thing to say about hand-drawn animation, but you have to love how hand-made this feels. Rough and ragged at the seams… Shaky, sketchy lines left in the final product. Part of me wishes this was a massive Disney-Renaissance budgeted thing that could really do something perfected with a rotoscoped fantasy movie, but part of me wouldn’t have it any other way.

  It almost feels like animation is the only medium that could properly capture this kind of primordial sword and sorcery fantasy… and also the only medium that could properly embody just how sexist and racist things are inside Bakshi & Frazetta's minds.

  Most animated movies will pre visualize their…