TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

wm_sea Watched this many times in mid-80s. Turns up on Tubi for free viewing.

IndustriousAngel Let me say something first: The world of animation owes a great deal to Ralph Bakshi. He was one of those who constantly fought against the limitations of the medium; maybe some kind of anti-Disney. Animation as we know it today would be a lot poorer without Bakshi (without Disney too, of course). Now, as important as Bakshi is for the medium, the sad thing about his career is that nearly all of his projects seem half-finished at best; even if they made it to the big screen many of his films are uneven rides. The one exception (in my opinion) is "Fire and Ice", a fantasy flick with some really good animation and high quality from start to finish. The character designs are based on Frazetta (good choice) and the animation often rotoscoped, therefor realistic.Now - why then do I give it only 4 out of 10?! Answer: The story is so weak you basically have to turn off the speakers to enjoy the pictures. They took some Frazetta drawings and put them on film without filling them with character or life. Then they wrote a story so these cardboard "characters" had to move around so they could show off some cool animation. It's truly mind-boggling how much work they put into this, instead of filming something like, say, a "Dragonriders of Pern"-story.Recommended for animation nuts (like myself)

TheLittleSongbird 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

xamtaro I won't claim to be a fan of Ralph Bakshi, because i am not. I have only watched 5 of his animated films so far: Coonskin, Wizards, Fritz the Cat and Lord of the Rings and finally "Fire and Ice". What i CAN claim, is that i found "Fire and Ice" to be the most enjoyable of the lot. It is a straightforward fantasy tale of swords and sorcery along the lines of Conan the Barbarian, but the beautiful artwork, realistic animation and lively film score effectively lends a very classic charm to this movie.Deserving first mention, is the animation itself. I do not care what people say about rotoscoping but in my opinion Ralph Bakshi used that technique very effectively here. I was amazed at how realistic the movements of the characters were. The style of directing and the photo-realistic character designs made "Fire and Ice" feel more like a big budget fantasy blockbuster than a cartoon. Sadly the level of art detail tends to get a little inconsistent, especially near the end of the movie. Some scenes just look really flat with little to no body contour details or fabric folds and shadows on the characters.With realistic moving characters, realistic action would naturally follow. Not only was the action well choreographed, but it was really brutal. I would be so bold as to compare the brutality of the action to live action movies like Zack Snyder's 300. I did notice however that though there was blood shed, the blood splatters were kept to a minimum. Again, a great choice by the creative team that only heightens the viewing experience by not taking things too "over the top".Though i do not recognize any "big names" in the cast, the voice actors manage to deliver a satisfying performance; keeping the delivery of every line realistically subdued and only hamming it up in the case of the bad guys.Did i say bad guys?? yes i did. Because that is exactly what the story is about, a standard good vs evil tale. Nothing really original about the story which seems to merely be a mix of pre-existing fantasy film clichés that involve scantly clad warriors and maidens. Anyone looking for "depth" would be sorely disappointed. THe characters are not given much development and some of them like Nekron and Darkwolf are one dimensional at best(I did however hear rumor of some deleted scenes that explains Darkwolf's obsession with killing Nekron and his mother. Scenes like that deserved full restoration and should have been included in the final cut to add a level of depth to the show). In fact, i would not be surprised to find out that the whole movie was just a "tech demo" of sorts to showcase the awesome animation and art, with the story cobbled together and thrown in as an afterthought in order to pass it off as a proper "movie".A true classic of a bygone era, "Fire and Ice" really captures the blazing spirit of adventure and mysticism with its beautiful renderings of fantastic creatures and charming characters. It is a unique vision of a world created by Ralph Bakshi and artist Frank Frazetta with a good measure of action and suspense. Would it hold up to animated film standards of today? Definitely not. But i urge animation fans in general to "get off your high horse" and give this simple but beautiful film a chance to grow on you. It is Truly a gem of the 80s worth checking out.