Fire and Ice (via Hoopla Video)

Fire and Ice
by Randy Norton, Ralph Bakshi, Frank Frazetta [Hoopla Movie]

While I was having a discussion about animation styles and methods with someone, they gave this movie as an example of rotoscoping and showed me the first few minutes so I could see what they were talking about. This method of animation is when they film live people acting out the film then use that to create the animation. The result is very real looking human movements and features. It was odd at first because animation does not usually look real at all, even for things like people and animals that are real, so at first it looks kind of awkward, but got less so the more I watched. I didn’t feel like turning it off after the first 10 minutes, which was the intent, and ended up watching the whole thing. The plot is there that is a king with a son and a daughter in the kingdom of fire, and an evil ruler and his mother in the kingdom of ice. Hence the title – Fire and Ice.

The kingdom of ice is on a glacier and is invading lands here there and everywhere. They reach the kingdom of fire and ask the king to surrender; when he says no, the ice minions kidnap the princess. She’s not exactly a damsel in distress however because she escapes her captors and in the process meets two other people set on bringing down the ice kingdom. One, a solider who’s band of brothers were killed in battle against the ice kingdom and the other a mysterious Batman / Conan type character with his own reasons, which are more implied than laid out for us (even after the whole movie is over it’s unclear, but hinted at). It’s set in a fantasy world, if that was not yet obvious, so in addition to the humans there are various beasts and winged dinosaur looking creatures they get to ride on. It’s definitely not a movie for everyone and it’s not a kid’s movie either. Most of the characters don’t don much in the way of clothes, there is blood, murder and battle; this makes it sound like Game of Thrones (Song of Fire and Ice), but they are not related. This predates even the Game of Thrones books from 1996, as this movie came out in 1983. At any rate, if you want to see it, you’ll need to do so on Hoopla, either streaming it or downloading it on PC or mobile device.

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official Fire & Ice page on Ralph Bakshi’s web site ]

 

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues (on Hoopla)

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues
[Hoopla Downloadable Movie] 

I’m quite a Red Sonja fan, so I was looking forward to seeing this, but didn’t know what to expect. The animation, if you want to call it that, felt like moving paper cutouts around and filming them. Not everyone will like this but I didn’t mind. One of Red Sonja’s foes in this movie is a former friend who is haunted by ghosts of those she and Sonja were forced to fight in a Colosseum of sorts while they were both imprisoned. There is also a plague ailing the city Sonja is trying to defend from her former friend, and it turns out there is someone unexpected behind it all. I thought the story was fairly good and there were enough flash backs to know the backstory to Sonja and her former friend. The major discussion point of this movie to me is that the dialog came across as comical and I don’t think it was intended to be. Sometimes what they said was so out of place and character it was funny and sometimes it was how said it. This sort of thing would occur in serious conversations but made me laugh out loud anyway; somehow this was not irritating to me but I think easily could be. While I’ve read plenty of Red Sonja, Marvel and Dynamite, I have not read the comics this is based on so that may influence one’s perception, as is the case anytime you read the book then see the movie. If you have little to no exposure to Red Sonja, this could easily spoil your view of her, so see my recommendations below for better introductions to her character. I wouldn’t say this film is for everyone, (I’m not too sure I’ll even watch it again), but if you like movies that try to be serious and fail miserably, then this may be for you.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Red Sonja comics, also on Hoopla: Red Sonja: Vulture’s Circle, Red Sonja: The Black Tower or The Chronicles of Conan Vol 4: The Song of Red Sonja and Other Stories] [Also available in traditional print format.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!