Has anyone else heard of this 90's classic? However, I consider this film a classic not by tradditional means mostly because quite frankly, this film is strange as hell! The story is about a french prince named Frederick, a prince who has inherited his father's magical capabilities, so far his mother and father have been killed by his wicked Aunt named Messina and he's next on the list. However, instead of just killing him like the other ones, Messina instead turns him into a frog because she wants to...eat him, ok?
However this oddly doesn't end up work up as frederick not only outswims her in the ocean (yeah they have this boring chase scene) but also is saved by the Loch Ness Monster...what?! Well ok, the Loch Ness Monster (called Nessy) soon gets trapped but not for long as Freddy lifts the rock trapping her using his telekinetic magical powers. And after that, Nessy gives him some sort of Nessy call to use when he needs her. After that, Freddy ends up in a Frog land where other frogs live so he spends most of his entire life there until he decides to become a secret-spy by growing up to human scale and having his frog friends give him clothes that they somehow found somewhere!
Oh and did I forget to mention that he teams up with a scottish weapons expert named (fitting enough) Scotty, and a british girl named Daffers to stop this unbelievably fat bastard named El Supremo who just happens to be partners with Messina in her snake form and they're stealing monuments around the world to collect they're life force energy so they could make everyone but them somehow fall asleep so then he along with Messina can take over the world?!
Now I know what you're thinking. That, is batshit insane! And that's ok because I think that too however I found it delightfully bathsit insane. Then again I did use to watch this film many times as a kid. Anyway, there's more things to enjoy about Freddie as F.R.O.7 AKA Freddie The Frog.
For example, the animation is at it's best amazing and at it's worst, slightly above average. The acting is superb! This film actually has sort of a an all star cast in it with the talents of Ben Kingsley, Jonathan Pryce, and even BRIAN BLESSED! All three do a great job in their roles. Ben Kingsley is sly and greatly deadpan as Freddie while BRIAN BLESSED is awesomely hammy as the evil El Supremo!
And who could forget the music! Almost all all of the tunes this movie includes is catchy and will never leave your head!
Here's Evilmania as an example of the awesome music:
Now this movie got a very undeserved rap, especially in it's original release! The film was developed in the U.K as Freddie as F.R.O.7 (bad pun aside), however here in the states, we got a butchered version of this movie called Freddie The Frog. Lots of footage was cut from the original British version, and an entirely new opening was made with bits of the original opening included in a montage and so forth. While some cuts and additions were a bit unnessecary some were also actually a bit of a help.
The original version really does feel out of place at times, with most plot points not explained til later in the story and such. Plus, the song Evilmania came out of nowhere in the original version and included KKK members and Nazis! While that's interesting to look at, there's no real purpose other for them than to either prove this El Supremo douche is evil (something that isn't in need of assistence) or just mind screw with us.
The American version at least makes an attempt to make the story more coehesive and in chronological order. However, the American still dumbs down a lot of other moments, and reuses a lot of animation just to shove morals down our throats. Plus some of the other moments which would show some personality in Scotty and Daffers were cut just to make the movie shorter which doesn't make sense.
Of course the American version is the most popular version because it's the most accessible version out of them all. However that doesn't mean the original british version is unavaliable to see you can find the U.K version on youtube, that's where I found it. However, it's uploaded off a vhs copy which already was in bad quality. I mean come on the American Version got a nice transfer why not this version? The uploader of the movie named FRO7Movie hopes that there is a Blu-Ray DVD re-release which I'm totally behind because I really really want to know what it was like behind the scenes in this movie!
So, what are your opinions about this film? Is it a certain kind of classic? Or is it a train wreck mess that should just stay put on VHS?
