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IMDbPro

Freddie la grenouille

Original title: Freddie as F.R.O.7.
  • 1992
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 31m
IMDb RATING
5.1/10
863
YOUR RATING
Jenny Agutter, Brian Blessed, Ben Kingsley, Phyllis Logan, Victor Maddern, John Sessions, and Billie Whitelaw in Freddie la grenouille (1992)
Animal AdventureFairy TaleHand-Drawn AnimationParodyQuestAdventureAnimationComedyFamilyFantasy

A French prince who was turned into a frog becomes a secret agent and goes to England to stop an evil plot that begins when famous buildings there start disappearing.A French prince who was turned into a frog becomes a secret agent and goes to England to stop an evil plot that begins when famous buildings there start disappearing.A French prince who was turned into a frog becomes a secret agent and goes to England to stop an evil plot that begins when famous buildings there start disappearing.

  • Director
    • Jon Acevski
  • Writers
    • Jon Acevski
    • David Ashton
    • Peter Gardner
  • Stars
    • Ben Kingsley
    • Jenny Agutter
    • David Ashton
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.1/10
    863
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Jon Acevski
    • Writers
      • Jon Acevski
      • David Ashton
      • Peter Gardner
    • Stars
      • Ben Kingsley
      • Jenny Agutter
      • David Ashton
    • 19User reviews
    • 18Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos12

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    Top cast17

    Edit
    Ben Kingsley
    Ben Kingsley
    • Freddie
    • (voice)
    Jenny Agutter
    Jenny Agutter
    • Daffers
    • (voice)
    David Ashton
    • Additional Voices
    • (voice)
    Brian Blessed
    Brian Blessed
    • El Supremo
    • (voice)
    Jenny Funnell
    Jenny Funnell
    • Additional Voices
    • (voice)
    Nigel Hawthorne
    Nigel Hawthorne
    • Brigadier G
    • (voice)
    Michael Hordern
    Michael Hordern
    • King
    • (voice)
    • (as Sir Michael Hordern)
    James Earl Jones
    James Earl Jones
    • Narrator (American version)
    • (voice)
    Edmund Kingsley
    Edmund Kingsley
    • Young Freddie
    • (voice)
    Phyllis Logan
    Phyllis Logan
    • Nessie
    • (voice)
    Victor Maddern
    Victor Maddern
    • Old Gentleman Raven
    • (voice)
    Jonathan Pryce
    Jonathan Pryce
    • Trilby
    • (voice)
    Bruce Purchase
    Bruce Purchase
    • Additional Voices
    • (voice)
    Prunella Scales
    Prunella Scales
    • Queen
    • (voice)
    • …
    John Sessions
    John Sessions
    • Scotty
    • (voice)
    • …
    Adrian Della Touche
    • Narrator
    • (voice)
    • (as Adrian De La Touche)
    Billie Whitelaw
    Billie Whitelaw
    • Messina
    • (voice)
    • Director
      • Jon Acevski
    • Writers
      • Jon Acevski
      • David Ashton
      • Peter Gardner
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews19

    5.1863
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    Featured reviews

    2therubixtheory

    Toadally awful film

    forgive the pun, i watched this movie about a week or two back for the fun of it since i was trying hard to remember it after not seeing it since childhood, let me tell you, the film seemed a hell of a lot better when i was a child.

    i gave it a 2 because of the good animation but other than that this is a pretty pointless and awful movie.

    the dubbing was the worst part of this movie to me, but the characters never had any worth remembering lines anyway so it doesn't matter.

    there were two songs in this movie that i really didn't see the point of, the queen of evilmania and nessie's song, both of them had absolutely terrible lyrics not even fit for an episode of postman pat and both seemed utterly pointless and wasted time, they were probably only put in to fill gaps.

    do we even find out at all during this movie who this insanely evil and pudgy dictator is, i don't think i hear his name once or even why he's involved with the movie.

    i don't get why freddie decided to go back to France to stop crooks, i don't understand why he drives this weird green car and i don't get how he managed to turn from a 6 inch frog to a 5 foot man during one scene or how exactly the other frogs managed to find him clothes, the fact that it's a kids animation is not a plausible excuse.

    the only other good bit i thought was the British man who always tripped over his own phone chord and got tangled up in it more than once in the film and each time more ridiculously, this to me was a pretty original and funny joke but they didn't execute it perfectly enough to make it funny.

    there's a Scottish character in it, and guess what his name is, that's right, Scottie, very very typical.

    my real question is, why exactly could all of britains monuments be used to power up a crystal which puts people to sleep, if you cant answer that question then there really is no reason for the second half of this movie.

    so anyway, my verdict, the film was too short, made no sense, was a work of nonsense and was poorly casted vocally.
    7TheLittleSongbird

    Cheesy and predictable, but is compensated by some great animation and a top notch voice cast

    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
    supercrisis

    Hard to Recall

    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.
    7Cylex

    Strange. Watch it for the Nessies.

    This is one of the strangest films I have ever seen, but I loved the idea & the Nessies.

    A prince is turned into a frog by his evil aunt & grows up to be a Bond-style detective. He makes friends with Nessie (excellently played by Phyllis Logan) & her extended family. Meanwhile landmarks such as Big Ben are disappearing. Freddie is on the case...

    If you feel like a change from the usual formula, then this won't disappoint. It's not that bad. Really. 7/10
    4IonicBreezeMachine

    A messy and confusing family fantasy James Bond spoof that has clear effort, but lack of structure or direction.

    In Medieval France, a young prince named Frederic (Edmund Kingsley) is taught by his father the Magician King (Michal Hordern) various spells and lives a happy life with him. Unbeknownst to Frederic and the King, the King's jealous sister, Messina (Billie Whitelaw), is planning to kill the king and usurp the power of the throne having already arranged for the death of Frederic's mother some year's back using her black magic. Messina disguises herself as a serpent and scares the King's horse and the King dies as a result of her actions. Messina is left as the kingdom's ruler with Frederic as his ward til he comes of age, but Messina uses her magic to transform Frederic into a frog and reveals her true intentions. Frederic is saved by a chance encounter with the Loch Ness monster, Nessie (Phyllis Logan), and Messina is forced to retreat. Sometime later Frederic has grown (now voiced by Ben Kingsley) and is now the French Secret Serivde's top secret agent Freddie aka F. R. O.7. Britain is beset by a series of disappearances of its most famous monuments and with the British Secret Service lacking in manpower, its head Brigadier G (Nigel Hawthorne) requests the French government loan Freddie to them. Freddie is teamed with two other agents, martial artis Daffers (Jenny Agutter) who also has a crush on Freddie, and weapons inventor Scotty (John Sessions). As the group investigate the disappearance of the monuments they come to discover the culprits are a criminal organization known as The Snake which is lead by Freddie's aunt Messina and her husband El Supremo (Brian Blessed) who are bent on taking over Britain using the latent energy hidden within its monuments with grander sights on world domination.

    Freddie as F. R. O.7 (aka Freddie the Frog) was one of many animated films released throughout the 90s that tried to capitalize on the revised interest in theatrical animation that began in the 80s with Don Bluth's films An American Tail and Land Before Time and exploded with the likes of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Little Mermaid. While many animated Disney films were massively successful such as Aladdin which became the highest grossing film of 1992, non-Disney productions tended to struggle with misfires like Ferngully: The Last Rainforest and An American Tail failing to light any fires at the box office, or foreign animations like Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, The Princess and the Goblin, or The Magic Voyage primed for international appeal only to fizzle out due to either distribution problems or production issues. South London-based Hollywood Road Films was an independent animation studio whose writer/producer/director Jon Acevski based the film off the bedtime stories he'd tell his child about the adventures his stuffed animal frog toy had and unfortunately that becomes really apparent. While as an animated production it doesn't carry the same weight and polish as contemporary Disney productions or even Amblimation movies of the time like Fivel Goes West or We're Back, it does look a cut above some animated features I've seen, but the script is a mess and there's only so much that the bevy of high profile British talent can bring to get a purse from a Sow's ear.

    To describe the plot of Freddie as F. R. O.7 (or Freddie the Frog as it was called in the SGE re-edit in 1995) is akin to describing a fever dream. What starts in a typical "fairy tale kingdom" goes to a jazzy community of anthropomorphic frogs, which in turn goes to a fantastical take on Bond/eurospy tropes and finally to borderline Star Wars type settings that if you were to show individual stretches of this film out of context to someone unfamiliar with it, odds are they wouldn't believe those segments were from the same film. The movie has a very loose narrative and that makes sense considering Acevski told these kinds of adventure stories to his young child about his stuffed frog toy, but that kind of loose narrative is okay when it's being told to a half-asleep child whose age is in the low single digits and not for a theatrical animated film that needs to have a greater sense of cohesion for the audience to grasp onto. With its mixture of spy tropes, fairy tale tropes, and some rather questionable innuendos, double entendres, and some jaw dropping scenes involving (no joke) dancing Klansman and foot soldiers dressed in Nazi chic, it's the kind of movie that's too busy and complicated for kids to follow, but it's also too shallow and non sensical for adults to get engaged with either. Speaking of the dancing Klansman and Nazis, the movie is also a musical and quite a bad one at that. Most of the songs are either bland or forgettable, and when they do happen they're usually dead stops that do absolutely nothing to further the story (what little there is anyway). Evilmania is the song featuring the Klansman and Nazis and outside of the "What!?" factor it's a pretty shapeless song where Billie Whiteclaw isn't even really singing and is more speaking while the song plays with no sense of rhythm or melody.

    I will say there's an impressive cast on paper. The movie features an absolute dream cast of some of Britain's best with the likes of Ben Kingsley, Brian Blessed, Jonathan Pryce, Nigel Hawthorne, and a few others and you couldn't ask for a better line-up of talent. Kingsley sounds like he's having fun playing up the French "hon! Hon! Hon!" stereotypical voice which is like a more restrained Pepe le Pew in terms of subtlety, but most of the other members of the cast are just filling types and places. Nigel Hawthorne's character Brigadier G has a particularly bad running gag of constantly getting tangled up in phone cords and inadvertently insulting high ranking government officials or foreign dignitaries and they do this gag four times and it never builds upon it or does anything different with it. Most of the set pieces that aren't related to the monument thefts just feel like "visual noise" that's well animated enough I suppose, but there's no narrative drive pushing us through these set pieces and the emotional core is rather lacking with Messina having killed both of Freddie's parents but Freddie doesn't seem all that engaged with her as an antagonist.

    Freddie as F. R. O.7 has remained relatively obscure since its financial and critical failure in 1992 and that's rather unfortunate because while the movie doesn't work, it's utterly fascinating in why it doesn't work. With head scratching creative choices, a story that feels like it began as a mad lib, a cast made up of some of Britain's finest actors, and elements like dancing Nazis and Klansmen odds are you've never seen anything try so hard while falling face first. In an era where many European produced animated features are thinly veiled Shrek knock-offs there's something almost nostalgic about movies like this that serve as a reminder of how much the animation landscape has changed. I can't say it's "good" but you'll remember it. To date the movie hasn't been released on DVD, Blu-ray, or digital storefronts, but the film does survive from the old VHS rips on Youtube. It's only about 79 minutes long so not a terribly costly time investment.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      A sequel, tentatively titled "Freddie Goes To Washington", was already in the works long before this film was released. Because this film did so badly at the box-office, the sequel was shelved indefinitely.
    • Goofs
      On the Scottish island, when Freddie and Scotty knock out the two guards at the entrance to the secret lair, Scotty states that they should use the guards' uniforms and face masks to camouflage themselves. Freddie has difficulty understanding the term and saying the word, which is a mistake as the word itself is French, meaning to disguise oneself. However, such a word may not have been in use during Freddie's childhood in France, but he is likely to have run across it in his several hundred years of life, and as it is a French word he should understand its meaning.
    • Quotes

      [Freddie has just met Daffers]

      Freddie: [smoothly] Delighted to meet "you", Daffers.

      [kisses her hand]

      Freddie: I'm afraid I don't have much use for gadgets but...

      [looks down her chest]

      Freddie: [referring to her robot fly] I like the landing area.

    • Alternate versions
      The US version of the film is heavily cut, under the title of Freddie the Frog with new narration from actor James Earl Jones. Nearly 20 minutes of footage (including double entendres) was cut and several sequences were re-edited. Racially sensitive elements were removed or changed, like the KKK-members and Nazi axis-like soldiers during the "Evilmainya" song sequence and the tourist and punk crows were re-dubbed, not only was this to make the film more family friendly, but was also an attempt to make the movie less confusing to viewers. This re-edit of the film ended up with a G rating from the MPAA.
    • Connections
      Featured in The Movie Game: Episode #5.13 (1992)
    • Soundtracks
      Keep Your Dreams Alive
      Composed by David Dundas

      Lyrics by Don Black

      Sung by George Benson and Patti Austin

      George Benson appears courtesy of Warner Bros. Records Inc.

      Patti Austin appears courtesy of GRP Records Inc.

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    FAQ17

    • How long is Freddie as F.R.O.7.?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • October 17, 1996 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Freddie, agent secret
    • Production companies
      • Hollywood Road Films
      • Motion Picture Investments
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,119,368
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $501,230
      • Aug 30, 1992
    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,119,368
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 31m(91 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby SR
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.78 : 1

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