Rating: 2.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2024 | 5/52 | Ralph Bakshi
Long ago, at the end of the end of the last great Ice Age, there arose in the North a powerful queen. Her name was Juliana, and her ambition was to extend her realm to all the regions of the known world.To this end, she gathered an army. And she bore a son and named him Nekron. And him she tutored in the black arts and in the powers of the mind. And when Nekron came of age and attained master of those powers, together they seized control of the region of ice.And from their castle called Ice Peak, they sent a giant glacier rumbling southward. No village or people could stand against its relentless onslaught. And so the remnants of humanity fled south and huddled for warmth among the volcanos of a mountain region ruled by a generous king named Jarol from his fortress, which men called Fire Keep.And still, Nekron pushed the ice ever southward into the temperate zone toward Fire Keep. And no one dared guess at the outcome of a meeting on the field of battle between fire and ice.
The narrator’s introduction pairs with Franzetta’s pencil sketches that set the tone. With one or two exceptions, the illustrations have nothing to do with the narration.
By 1983, dark fantasy/sword & sorcery films were taking off. They had not reached the market saturation of the early 1990s. Bakshi had established his fantasy cred with the Lord of the Rings and Wizards. Despite the heavy rotoscoping used for the animation, his films were the rare full-length independent animations.
This film is a collaboration between Bakshi and the renowned fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. Though the environment bears Frazetta’s fingerprints, the rotoscoping animation reduces everyone to that lumpy, awkward Bakshi style.
The most exciting animations are the sick monster designs because they didn’t rotoscope them.
Still, all the pieces come together successfully and tell a cohesive story. The story isn’t all that interesting, but it’s fun visually.