Another British export for you to digest, today's review is for 1992 animated feature Freddie as FRO7.

Very much a pet project for the writer and director who used bedtime stories he told his son about his favorite toy frog being a secret agent as the main plot for the film, which is sweet but very flawed as the film bombed on release, there's no DVD release, you can still get VHS and I have a copy of it. There is an American version called Freddie the Frog but it's not as good as the original British version. So what's the plot?
In a French micro nation believed to be Monaco but not in the way we know it, a young prince gets turned into a frog by his evil aunt who also killed his family. His aunt, Messina is a shape-shifter and sorceress which makes her top of the evil list in terms of villains. The Prince whose name is Frederic has powers of his own in the form of telekinesis and psychic manipulation, which comes in handy numerous times through out the film.
With no way to change back, Frederic spends the rest of his youth as a frog and grows up into a human-frog hybrid that would make the ninja turtles proud. The beginning of the film is entirely in flashback and after what seemed like a long time we come to present day where Freddie as he is named now works for the French Secret Service, god knows why, I'd just go with it; it's at this point we go into our main plot where Britain's landmarks are being stolen by a mysterious fog, with no one available to solve the mystery the Brigadier General hires Freddie to take the case, he is joined by a Scottish Weapons Expert, un-originally named Scotty and a Martial Artist who looks like April O'Neil's British cousin named Daffers. (short for Daphne apparantly)
While obtaining information we learn of the next target which is Big Ben, in between we get the villain song "Evilmania" which has a number of characters marching during the song which managed to somehow pass the censors.
Once our heroes are caught and taken to the villains lair we meet Messina again in snake form alongside a chubby bearded man named El Supremo with the big booming voice of Brian Blessed.
After a brief moment we hear the big evil plan; apparently El Supremo is using the energy stored in the monuments to put everyone in the country to sleep so he can invade the country unchallenged, he does this by removing the historical energy from the monuments which I assume is ectoplasm from historical people but it's never made clear what it actually is.
With Freddie and Scotty taking a dip in the ocean, Daffers is kind of brainwashed into being a follower, I say kind of because she maintains slight control of her mind.
Meanwhile Freddie & Scotty are saved by the Loch Ness Monster who is friends with Freddie from the flashback part. After a bizarre song, Nessie and the other Loch Ness creatures tie up the submarine fleet with seaweed to stop them while Freddie & Scotty join Daffers for the first of the big fight scenes, played to music by the band Asia. (That's awesome)
Freddie then stops the big gemstone that's absorbing the monument energy by throwing it away which is enough to break it, that's what you get for using cheap gemstone. We then move onto fight two with more music by Asia, this time joined by El Supremo. The heroes beat El Supremo which leads nicely into the final fight between Messina & Freddie which finishes slightly anti-climatic with Messina escaping in bird form, and so ends the adventure of Freddie the Frog.
This is a very cheesy film listed under the so bad it's good category. It serves as a good example of how not to apply your own artistic view, especially when all you got to go on is a bedtime story and a selection of 80s & early 90s power ballad cds. It deserves cult status but the license has never been renewed and a DVD release is unlikely considering the failings of it's release. A soundtrack still exists for an expensive price as it's super rare and VHS tapes still hang around in various discount stores and ebay.
Although to give you a treat and seeing as it's unlikely to be taken down I shall link you to the Youtube upload.

View the rest of the parts on Youtube, my blog isn't a movie theater you know.
So there you go, yet another offering from the British, at some point I'll find something we did that's actually good.