Ralph Bakshi paired up with his good friend, famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta and delivered 1983’s Fire & Ice. An animated rotoscoped sword and sorcery adventure, this film feels more in line with the 70s style of animation and storytelling, despite the rise of Dungeons & Dragons at the time.

An evil ruler, Nekron (Sean Hannon), wields magical power including control over ice, his glaciers are advancing over the land. He comes into conflict with the southern tribes of humans and Nekron and his evil mother, Julianna (Eileen O’Neill) are prepared to wipe them out. He uses his sub-humans to capture the king’s daughter, Teegra (Cynthia Leake), but they run afoul of Larn (Randy Norton), whose tribe was wiped out, and the incredible barbarian, Darkwolf (Steve Sandor).

Skimpy costumes for both men and women, more so for Teegra, surprise, surprise, make you wonder about the environment these characters live in. Consequently, the story lacks a sense of history and continuity, though some background art for the locations hints at something greater.

It’s a fast-paced tale, that sees Teegra jumping from one problem to the next, constantly escaping and being recaptured over and over again. That’s silly because it just keeps fostering a ridiculous trope.

Darkwolf is cool, and the sequences he’s involved in really highlight the character’s prowess with his weapons. In fact, his sequences are the best in the film, though his final confrontation with Nekron feels like it should have been edited and shot a little tighter.

A little more in the way of a narrative, and some stronger characters, not to mention a history for the world we find ourselves in, could have made this something. Instead, it seems a little out-of-place in the 80s, and it’s not quite as good as you want a fantasy movie to be.

There are some moments that would have made for great set pieces in a live-action version, something that has been rumoured about for a while, Robert Rodriguez is apparently interested. But outside of things like The Lord of the Rings, the fantasy genre has never been financed and encouraged as well as it could have been (the Conan films could have been much bigger, though I love the original).

I like some of the ideas and moments, but it plays a little simplistically. If you’re going to dive into the fantasy realm, you want things to be epic, and while the background art hints at some amazing things, nothing super-epic happens, cool beats sure, but overall, not super enjoyable.

Despite that, I still find Bakshi’s work intriguing and may hunt down some more of his work.