Freddie as F.R.O.7.

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.

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.

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.

'Freddie as FRO7' is really an enjoyable little film. It might be a bit chaotic, and even weird, it has its very own, very different kind of charm. What's that you're saying? That this movie is a stinking bowl of manure? Wait just a second, and answer me this:

WHICH VERSION ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

This is a vital question in this case, because if you're talking about the USA version, i must point out, that I'm talking about the original version. And both of us are totally right about each opinion.

With this unfortunate little movie, American editors have gone way too far. While at some points I understand the concept behind their motive to chop this poor cartoon into shreds, but at many times, there doesn't seem be any kind of concept to talk about.

For example, I can see why they cut the two jokes about Daffers' (a female secret agent) breasts. One of the jokes consisted of the main role gazing at her boobs while taking a comment about them, in the other one however she shows them off to Freddie (not to the audience). I was around nine, when I first saw this movie, and found the first joke funny, and the second one quite weird. But none of them offensive. Men are attracted to boobs. I don't have any problem with that, neither did back then. But okay, it's not children's material, so I can accept that it's been cut. Next thing: dancing soldiers. The problem with these evil minions lies in their appearance. They do look a bit like Nazis, and some of them wear KKK uniforms. As a nine year old kid, I knew quite a few things about WWII, but I knew how Nazis looked like, and I already knew many things to hate them for. So evil soldiers portrayed as Nazi look-alikes felt appropriate. But maybe i only knew these things because I'm European... but wait! I even understood the KKK references! Still, I may understand why the cut HALF of the song featuring these guys. At this point however, those enthusiastic US editors really got themselves into editing! Geesh, what to cut next? What to cut next? And there goes the fight scene at the end. I don't get it. It's not that they cut out the more violent parts. They've just erased half of it with no reason! Why? Were they short on celluloid? Anyway, this is a painful cut. It makes the ending totally anti-climatic, and makes the rest of the fight-scene entirely pointless.

But why stop here? Let's trash out a whole plot line! Why? Seriously, WHY? You see, there is this guy at the yard who's always turning his eyes, snickering in a very slimy manner, and so on. He is just the evil slime-ball stereotype. In the original version he turns out to be a spy for the evil ones, and gets arrested at the end. In the US version, he doesn't turn out to be a spy, and doesn't get arrested. He just does his evil looks, eye-turnings, and snickering, and thats it. WHY???? Now he's a character that's not just totally useless, but also clearly insane! What was the point?!

That's nice, the movie is in ruins now. But oh, we aren't finished yet! The original version starts off with Freddie cruising through France in his weird car, arrives at his apartment, starts feeding the fish, which gives him a flashback about a pond in France, where he spent his childhood. This neat touch gives the movie a needed framing. In the US version, the film starts with random medieval castle-parts. I really got confused at first, and thought the DVD might have the wrong film on it. Again, this edit makes absolutely no sense.

No, that's not all, really that's only the tip of the crap-berg, but I think you got the idea.

For the original version the score would be 7/10, While the American version barely lives up for a mere 3/10.

Take my advice: If you really want to see this, DO NOT BUY THE US VERSION, which appears to be the only version for DVD. You better off with buying a VHS player and a copy of the original on tape.

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.