"Fire and Ice" is an odd Fantasy film from an even odder director, Ralph Bakshi. An evil sorcerer named Nekron and his evil queen/mother use his powers to attack the land of Fire Keep or something like that. Honestly, if it weren't for the work of famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, this whole affair probably wouldn't be worth watching.

This reminds me a lot of the animated "Heavy Metal". It's not vulgar like "Heavy Metal". And although there's not a lot of nudity the characters are as scantily clad as possible. I'm not trying to sound uptight, it's just pretty easy to see why many would find this novel.

The whole thing is pretty much pointless. There's a lot of bad guys chasing around a girl with a dental floss bikini and a pony-tailed brave in a loincloth. For serious Fantasy genre fans, this has got to be a letdown. There's just not much that happens.

The animation style is about 90% rotoscoped with very little that is fully hand-drawn. Rotoscoping always makes me wonder what the point is. Trying to make animation look true-to-life seems like it's defeating the purpose. Disney did a lot of rotoscoping too. But it looks much better than anything you'll find in "Fire and Ice".

I actually liked this a little more than I should have largely because of Frazetta's involvement.

This needed to be R rated. It teetered on the edge so often that a little push and it would have hit the notes it should have it to be American pop good.

But it's PG, shocking given who created it. It was a darker tone than Lord of the Rings with the same cool anti-Disney animation. But, when it comes to content it falls a little short.

It was already made for adults, it was already dark. It was already gritty. And it was released in 83, I was a kid in the 80s, R movies were still kids fair back then.

A little push further into the dark side and it would have been perfect.

But as it stands, it's still what I would call an "imperfect masterpiece," its a fun film to watch if you are into that genre. It's a fun film to watch if you are into Bakshi flicks. It's a fun film period... it just needed that extra push.