After a lengthy prologue of exposition that seems more at home in The Lord of The Rings our first sequence involves a mountain of ice approaching a village. The ice mountain explodes and destroys much of the village, paving the way for barbarians to rush in and kill the survivors. They begin to loot gold from the dead and enjoy the spoils of war. One of the survivors plays dead and later battles the barbarians. They chase him through a dense jungle and after he is backed onto a tree limb that overlooks a ravine...he jumps. He falls for a long time but several vines break his fall and he survives.
Meanwhile, representatives of the evil ice guys arrive and give their demands to the fire people (hence the name of our film). It is but a distraction as their comrades kidnap the princess. She isn't captive long as she uses her 'attributes' to her advantage and escapes. They continue to chase her but the story doesn't really progress for some time. A giant lizard eats some bad guys. Our blond haired blue eyed cliffjumper fights a pack of wolves. Just a bit of the old ultra violence really. Not complaining about the lack of story though, as the animation is beautiful.
Cliffjumper and the princess meet up as she steals his supper but claims she is not a thief. They begin to bond and flirt a bit. He tries to kill a hentai tentacle monster for her and nearly dies in the process. While he recovers the barbarians find the princess and recapture her. Cliffjumper is saved by a guy who looks like Conan the Barbarian combined with the Black Panther. His name is Dark Wolf.
The princess manages to escape yet again...just as Cliffjumper and Dark Wolf attempt to rescue her. She isn't free long as she is captured by a giant caveman and taken to a lesbian sorceresses. But...the lesbian sorceress and caveman are quickly killed by the barbarians. Cliffjumper arrives and finds the rotting corpse of the sorceress. He convinces her to tell him where the princess has been taken. She is a captive of Nekron, no relation to the DC Comics character, and is to be his wife. Nekron is like a combination of the Emperor from Return of The Jedi and Ming the Merciless.
Nekron laughs at the princess when she proposes peace and throws her in a pit of dead bodies. When she wakes up she finds the dead body of her brother. He attempted to rescue her but was forced to kill himself by Nekron's magic. Cliffjumper finally confronts Nekron and the two engage in a duel, but is defeated and thrown in prison. He quickly escapes, of course, and is chased through a blizzard by the barbarians.
Dark Wolf comes to his recuse. They return to the ice fortress with a squad of pterodactyls. Archers shoot down Dark Wolf's steed but he manages to fight his way to Nekron. Cliffjumper and the princess reunite as Dark Wolf and Nekron face off. Nekron fights with his magical force powers but in the end Dark Wolf manages to put an ax in his side and in his chest for good measure. As he dies the ice fortress grows out of control and the king of the fire people unleashes a wave of lava that completely destroys the ice fortress.
Cliffjumper and the princess survive and as one last barbarian crawls to them Cliffjumper is ready to kill him. The princess steps in and declares the conflict over. The barbarian's life is spared. The princess finally has the peace she desired at the beginning of the film. The two embrace and you have...the end.
This film was created to cash in on the success of Conan the Barbarian and The Beastmaster. With a script by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway who wrote issues of Marvel's Conan series no less. Other minds behind this film are Thomas Kinkade and Peter Chung, who would go on to be the brains behind Aeon Flux. The hero of this film, Larn (who i have reffered to as Cliffjumper) is like a combination of Tarzan and Conan. With his long pony tail he reminds me of He-Man from The New Adventures of He-Man.
Say what you will about the plot...but the movie is simply beautiful. The backgrounds are all fully painted and overall the film feels like a Frazetta painting come to life. In fact there are several scenes that reverences his paintings. If the characters seem more lifelike than normal that's because animation was rotoscoped over live action actors. Overall, the film is unfocused. Characters come and go, like the sorceresses or the brother to the princess. They have little to no affect on the overall plot of the story, they simply exist. The villains are evil simply because...they're evil. No real motivations. One key aspect cut from the script was the fact that Dark Wolf was revealed to be Nekron's father, which would explain his motivation for killing him.
Bottom line. If you enjoyed Heavy Metal then you will like this film. Any fan of Conan, Beastmaster or Tarzan should check it out. Or, if you are a fan of Frazetta and have yet to see this I highly suggest you give it a look. Think of it as an animated version of Conan or an extremely violent episode of He-Man. It's definitely not for kids though. If you're still unsure if this film is something you'd enjoy then check out the trailer.
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