Freddie la grenouille

Wow, my first new review in months. What a great one to start out on! Am I glad to see that IMDB has an entry for this completely demented movie. I was starting to doubt my own sanity.

On to the review. This is one of those movies that is way to incomprehensibly bizarre to hate. If you like insane films, and you find it in the video store, rent it and watch it. Like it's obvious soul-brother, "Sayu-Ki", it might just change your life. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

I remember seeing this film in theatres as a child. I don't remember much about it except that I did enjoy it. It's a good watch for the kiddies, probably not as watchable for the parents. Since I can't remember much I'd say take a chance on a $.99 kids' rental and then get Spy Kids for the whole family to watch.

Where to start? This is one of the greatest animations to date, hell IT IS THE GREATEST ANIMATION TO DATE!!!! The story is as follows, a 17th century prince in France gets transformed into a frog, meets the loch ness monster and becomes present day secret agent Freddie the frog, fighting evil. Now the logic starts. All of Britains great monuments are disappearing because an obese warlord allied with Freddies evil aunt are shrinking them for a reason that makes perfect sense. All the Britons lives are directly linked to those monuments and if they are taken away, the British people die. Wow. What a film. So full of the logic and structure lacking in all of Spielbergs movies. It also has incredibly well done dialogue by a uniform cast and great songs that should have won an Oscar.

I saw this movie on the shelf of the local charity shop, and was differing whether to get it. In the end I made up my mind not to buy it, but to look at the rating and reviews on IMDb and watch it on YouTube. In spite of the low IMDb rating and the negative reviews, I enjoyed this movie. As for people saying that this is the worst animated movie ever, sorry I cannot agree. Doogal, Titanic:The Animated Movie and Secret of NIMH 2:Timmy To The Rescue are much much worse.

Freddie as F.R.0.7 isn't a perfect movie. The story about a prince turning into a frog and then an agent and having to investigate what happened to the disappearing monuments is predictable and sometimes uninvolving, some of the script is a little cheesy and there are one or two parts that drag. But there are a lot of things that compensate:

• Firstly the animation is great. As long as you are not expecting Disney, you'll be fine. Some of the backgrounds are gorgeous, like in the encounter of the Nessies, and the characters in general are well drawn particularly Freddie himself and Messina in snake form.

• Contrary to other reviews I liked the songs. True they are not perhaps Oscar worthy material, but they are memorable. The beginning song was excellent, and Messina's song was very well done if unusual. And the singing is actually good, in some animated films like the Secret of NIMH sequel the music sounds like it is being performed as part of a school end of year production but not here.

• The voice acting is top notch and add to the charm and quirkiness that the film does have. Ben Kingsley is absolutely charming as Freddie, and Phyllis Logan is excellent as Nessie in a truly charming scene. Brian Blessed relishes his role as the main villain El Supremo, while Billie Whitelaw is great as Messina particularly in the final climax. I love Jenny Agutter and she was lovely as Daffers. Sterling supporting voice work also from Nigel Hawthorne, Michal Hordern and Jonathan Pryce.

All in all, this is a flawed but charming film, helped by the great animation and voice acting. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Although every idea in the world does have potential to be great, that all depends on how you execute said concept. However, there are times when some products come out so disastrous in both concept and execution that you question how they even got funded in the first place. Such is the case of Freddie as F.R.O.7., a strange animated film from Jon Acevski, who based the feature off random stories he made up to his son. Although ambitiously made, the film was practically destroyed critically and financially and has since fallen into obscurity. After witnessing it, I think it deserves to remain there.

The main storyline follows a French secret agent frog who must stop his evil aunt Messina and partner El Supremo from taking over the world. Now as basic of a concept as that sounds, believe when I say that the movie is far more convoluted than you could ever imagine. Everything that leads up to this plot point is either completely unnecessary, like Freddie's confusing backstory on how he even became a frog, or poorly explained and underdeveloped like these secret mind powers Freddie has and how he even became a spy in the first place. Not to mention, so much random comedic filler between side characters and idiosyncratic stereotypes make the movie feel longer than it probably should, like you could cut them out and nothing would be amiss (which is funny since this movie was recut in America). Whatever key essential plot points that could have made the movie at least somewhat interesting sadly took a backseat to a straightforward narrative that either goes on for too long or barely explains much of anything, leaving the audience to wonder if the filmmakers even proof read the script.

Due to the weak and muddled execution, even the characters are poorly thought out. Freddie is just your typical cocky and overly confident super-spy with no charisma at all, his partners Daphne "Daffers" and Scotty are blank slates with only their special fighting moves to make them stick out, and the British secret service head Brigadier G only serves one whole gag purpose and that's it. Not even the villains are worth remembering, because outside of Messina's freaky animal-transforming powers and El Supremo's obsessive laughter, their motivation for taking over the world is never explained nor even logical for that matter. If there's anything slightly noteworthy to say about these paper-thin characters, at least the voice-cast tried with the trite they were given. In addition to the likes of Jenny Agutter, Brian Blessed, Billie Whitelaw, Nigel Hawthorne and John Sessions really honing in it, Ben Kingsley puts on a pseudo-Inspector Clouseau take for Freddie. It's just too bad that the one-dimensional script couldn't do much to help elevate these performances past all its flaws.

To the film's credit, the animation team did their best with the ridiculous concepts they were given, but even the visuals are a mixed bag. While some backgrounds and effects look gorgeously detailed, the character designs surprisingly lack much spontaneity and even their movements range from quite smooth and lively to rather stilted and choppy (makes one wonder if some scenes had to be rushed to meet the deadline). It doesn't help that sometimes the cluttered editing can make it hard to enjoy the fluidity of a sequence. Lastly, for some reason, this film has some musical numbers sprinkled throughout, and dear lord are they embarrassments. The opening love ballad sounds more like a depressing parody, Evilmainya gives every Disney villain song a bad name, and Shy Girl is a perfect example of a show stopper, because it literally stops the movie dead in its tracks. Not even Lay Down your Arms by Asia fits within the movie's context, as well done as it is. If these songs were made as attempts to create extra substance to the movie, then that plan backfired harder than you can say sacre bleu.

As historian Jerry Beck said it best, "this movie is an illustration on how NOT to make an animated film". Not only is Freddie as F.R.O.7. a failure in nearly every quality, but it turned out so mind bogglingly stupid that one has to wonder what the filmmakers were thinking throughout its production. I would say avoid this flick at all costs, but its so bizarre in its execution that it's actually worth analyzing. Seriously, if future generations can use this disaster-piece as an example on how not to make movies, then maybe the future of filmmaking can be salvaged after all.