For the last couple entries on the list this year I’ve decided to revisit some old favorites, directors who I’ve heaped praise on before on this blog, whether on the Marathon or otherwise. Of that group of legends, because a name drop by King Thunderbird is such an honor, it seems appropriate that we should start with Ralph Bakshi, one of the biggest names in American animation and one of its most ardent supporters. After all, my review of his 1975 film Coonskin is far and away the most popular review on this blog (hopefully because it’s well-written and insightful and not because racists needed something to beat off to) and ever since that post 4(!) years ago I haven’t touched another Bakshi film. Not because I don’t like me some Bak’, in fact I watched through his influential reboot of Mighty Mouse during the interim, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I needed that time to wallow in self-pity and watch Star Trek, it’s a huge commitment.
Fire & Ice sees Bakshi taking on much more traditional fare than the underground comix, surrealistic semi-autobiographies and blaxploitation reimaginings of old folk tales: sword ‘n’ scorcery type fantasy. Teaming up with legendary sci-fi and fantasy artist Frank Franzetta, with a screenplay by comic A-listers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, Bakshi and his team of animators present to us a world trapped between two extremes of temperature, civilization and morality. On are side are the humans, in their tropical home of jungles and swamps, ruled by King Jarol in Fire Keep. On the other is the evil sorceror Nekron and his equally evil mother Juliana, who rule over a bestial race of subhumans in the frozen land of Ice Peak. The two peoples have been engaged in a long and brutal war, a war which the Ice side has been slowly winning, thanks to Nekron’s magic. Not content with an inevitable victory however, Nekron and Juliana kidnap Jarol’s daughter Teegra in order to force an unconditional surrender. Teegra manages to escape her kidnappers however, and while starving in the woods due to having no survival skills meets up with Larn, a survivor of one of Nekron’s massacres. As the protagonists of the story, it’s up to them to figure out some way to defeat Nekron and once more restore peace to the land.
Although mostly they’re just going to give us up-close views of their groins.
I guess the most surprising thing about Fire & Ice is how god damn dull it is. You’d think that a script by Roy Thomas, a guy who not only wrote over 100 issues of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian series but his own 50 issue fantasy comic (Arak, Son of Thunder) would be able to craft a heart-racing tale of high adventure, but in 90 minutes it feels like nothing happens and our protagonists accomplish nothing of value. Larn and Teegra run a lot, a couple subhumans get stabbed, Teegra gets kidnapped, in fact Teegra gets kidnapped so often in this movie it goes beyond the outdated ‘damsel in distress’ narrative and into outrageous stupidity, rinse and repeat right up until the end. Hell, Larn, our protagonist and the guy who is featured in about 90% percent of the movie, DOES NOT KILL NEKRON AT THE END OF THE MOVIE (30+ year old spoilers). No, that honor goes to a side-character who has maybe 10 lines and isn’t actually mentioned by name throughout the entirety of the movie. Why? Who thought it would be a good idea to take a movie about sword-fighting wizards in a fantasy setting and make the main characters, in fact make every character beside Nekron and Blackwolf (that side character I mentioned) consistently incompetent? If Roy Thomas had tried to write Conan that way, I bet Marvel would have kicked his ass out onto the street after two issues. This seems to be a recurring theme with Bakshi films, but animation is not a substitute for an actual story.
Also, watching Fire & Ice now, there seems to be some very, very, unfortunate implications. The humans of Fire Keep, who we are told are good and noble, are white, while the spear-wielding, animalistic brutes of Ice Peak, who are explicitly labeled as ‘subhumans’, are all darker complexions (and ruled by Juliana and Nekron, both white). The few non-white characters we see on the human side are 1) a scantily clad servant girl to Teegra, 2) A crude boat captain who appears for about three seconds, 3) An evil red-headed witch who dies almost immediately and 4) Blackwolf, who basically exists to keep the protagonists from having to actually work for anything. Larn even has blond hair and blue eyes for fuck’s sake! I know this was the early 80s, and fantasy has always had issues with these kinds of things, but it’s hard to believe that folks were that tone-deaf. Of course Bakshi is the man behind Coonskin, so maybe this is him being more understanding.
The art is fantastic, as expected of Frank Frazetta, although the sheer amount of cheesecake packed in here does test the patience quite a bit. Not that I don’t mind looking at attractive women every so often, when I was starting puberty it was basically my hobby, but there are so many closeup shots of Teegra’s ass and chest in this movie that eventually you just become bored by it. Just like actual cheesecake, it’s best enjoyed in moderation. Also, although the art itself is good, the actual animation suffers from that same slowness that afflicted Rock & Rule way back when. I assume it’s like that because they’re basing the animation on footage of actual people performing these actions (it would explain the stuntmen listed in the credits), sort of a primitive motion-capture, but just because it makes things feel a bit more realistic doesn’t mean it’s good. It still feels, as I said, slow and cumbersome, and when you have a movie where the same woman gets kidnapped five times, I don’t think you can really afford to slow down the action even more than it already is.
I didn’t have a problem recommending Coonskin, because in spite of some very questionable design decisions, I felt that there was enough there, what it revealed about the time it which it was made, its historical context in regards to animation, its context in regards to African-Americans and African-American culture, that it was still a relevant film worthy of further discussion. Fire & Ice though? Meh, I’m just not feeling it. There are other fantasy movies out there (Bakshi even made two before this you could try instead) and other animated movies (might I suggest Kubo), so unfortunately I’m not feeling much pressure not recommending this one. Unless you’re a Frazetta junkie, which is totally understandable, this is one movie you don’t have to worry about on Halloween.
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