Freddie as F.R.O.7 / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: Was Messina snapping at El Supremo whenever he paid too much attention to Daffers because he was being distracted from the plan, or...
Angst? What Angst?: Freddie seems oddly relaxed when dealing with Messina at the climax. Considering she killed both of his parents, you'd think he'd be angrier, passionate at least.
Ass Pull: The first two minutes or so of the movie (and the title, for that matter) are incredibly innocuous and do not at all hint at the madness to come. Then we learn that Freddie's father is "a magic king" and…
- The film's entire narrative is arguably a lengthy succession of these. Case in point for the prologue alone: Freddie is transformed into a frog and pursued by Messina but then he's saved by the Loch Ness Monster but then he hides out with a society of anthropomorphic frogs but then Freddie grows six feet high and becomes a secret agent in the 1990s.
Awesome Music:
- "THE QUEEN OF EVILMAINYA!!"
- Asia's "Lay Down Your Arms" during the guard fighting scene.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Arguably the entire plot, but more specifically:
- The musical number "Shy Girl". Not only does it slow the film down, not only does it have no purpose whatsoever, but it also portrays Freddie (otherwise portrayed as a hypercompetent and sage-like figure throughout the film) as a slacker and makes you wonder why he isn't trying to save his friends from El Supremo's imminent mass naval takeover of Britain instead of partying around.
- The out-of-nowhere Flamenco Dance during the "battle" with Messina.
- Freddie's sentient frog-car Nicole could count as a SLNMM Character: She's never explained, disappears halfway through the movie and is never mentioned again.
Broken Base: Almost everyone who's seen this movie has a different opinion of its quality.
Cliché Storm: Much of the film's bizarre tone comes from how unflinchingly straight it follows the stock beats of 80s and 90s animated films, bordering on self-parody. The first few minutes are an agonizingly cookie-cutter fairy tale, with magic princes and wicked aunts in a vaguely romantic high medieval European setting. Even after the aforementioned Ass Pull, the aesthetic, characters and soundtrack are clearly borrowing from Don Bluth and early Renaissance-era Disney.
Crosses the Line Twice: The aforementioned Villain Song contains rollerskating Nazis and dancing Klansmen... but the entire scene is so ridiculous and nonsensical it's hard to be offended.
Designated Hero: Freddie as an adult, is far more concerned about fulfilling his mission while being a Smug Super about it. This includes keeping disabling walkie-talkies of his teammates without their consent, treating Messina as a nuisance, despite the latter murdering his parents and letting her get away to do more horrible things. That and he's a huge jerk to everyone except Nessie.
Fight Scene Failure: Despite the awesome music, the final battle suffers from the mooks just standing around while the characters dispatch them with slow, heavily telegraphed moves that barely even look like they connect.
Filler: You could cut every scene focusing on Messina away from El Supremo, and it would make the film's plot significantly more streamlined and logical. It has the feel of a twist awkwardly shoehorned into the film to give Freddie a superficially more "personal" connection to his mission.
Fridge Logic:
- The basic premise of the movie. Freddie was turned into a frog by his evil aunt... who killed his father with magic and proceeds to turn into a snake to finish the job. It begs the mind as to why she didn't simply kill him with magic as well.
- Loch Ness is in Scotland, what was Nessie doing in France?
- About frog stuff:
  - How does a giant frog become a secret agent?!
  - How did he go from a normal size frog to a human-sized frog?
  - Where did he get a froglike sentient car? A supposed female too.
  - How did he do all this and go from living in medieval times to the early 1990s?
  - Why did he never just use his magic to turn back into a human?
- Freddie and Messina are obviously French, but for some reason, the King has a British accent, not a French one.
- What happened to the kingdom afterwards?
- At one point, Freddie and Scotty are trapped underwater and Freddie gives Scotty extra air through a horn… but the horn was already fully submerged, so he was really just pumping more water into Scotty's mouth.
Hilarious in Hindsight: A plotline involving a guy living in a medieval kingdom who gets turned into a (human-sized) frog by an evil sorcerer, gets supernatural powers and goes on to fight evil would later be done in another, much better story.
Moral Event Horizon: Messina crossed it by killing Freddie's parents.
Narm: "Freddie shall rule the world!"
Narm Charm
- El Supremo. He comes out of nowhere, is a very stereotypical villain, and laughs hammily after every sentence he speaks. And yet, he's arguably one of the more enjoyable parts of the movie, possibly due to a characteristically scenery-devouring performance by BRIAN BLESSED!!!!!.
- The movie itself. It revels in making absolutely no sense.
Quirky Work: What do you get when you combine the rambling, non-linear structure of a bedtime story (as was the origin of the premise) and every single fairy tale and animated feature cliche and stock character of the late 80s/early 90s? A six foot tall magically-endowed frog who becomes a secret agent, singing Loch Ness Monsters, shrinking building rays, Klansmen and Nazis dancing in roller-skates, overt Interspecies Romance (including with a sentient car), a magical snake with an hourglass figure who sings with the voice of Grace Jones and BRIAN BLESSED!!!!! doing his usual thing for starters.
Retroactive Recognition: Americans who saw this as a kid, and then grew up and became fans of the British Whose Line Is It Anyway? might be surprised to realize Scotty is voiced by John Sessions.
So Bad, It's Good: Less "bad" and more "weird".
Suspiciously Similar Song: "Evilmania" is a sound-alike of the obscure Mel Brooks song "To Be Or Not To Be (The Hitler Rap)"; "Evilmania" even features a group of dancing, rollerskating henchmen wearing Nazi SS uniforms, further intensifying the connection.
Ugly Cute: Nessie and her family are either ugly or adorable... or both.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Yes, Messina does horrible things to Freddie. But when they meet again centuries later, he doesn't treat her with any kind of seriousness or show (fully justified) anger at her for killing his parents. Not only that, he's also a complete jerk to his team, not telling them information about the mission and treating them as annoyances.
Values Dissonance: The crows sound and act like African-American stereotypes in the original version. For the US release, this had to be changed for the benefit of more racially-conscious American audiences.
The Woobie: Scotty. Daffers barely acknowledges he exists, and Freddie is a jackass to him at every opportunity. The scene where Freddie leaves him freezing on a rock in the middle of the ocean is especially painful to watch.

YMMV / Freddie as F.R.O.7

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