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It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"The Frog" is another one of those films made by the Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomon that imitates the style of Georges Melies, made in 1908, and colorized using the Pathe Brothers technique of stencil-coloring. And, while the effects here are decent, there really is no story that goes with the them. In fact, don't look for a story in here at all because in the end it's just an excuse for Chomon to say "Oh, yeah, look at my camera tricks, cool, huh?" The thing is, these effects were pretty old already by the time Segundo got to this one.The film begins with a lady playing with a frog near a fountain, and what follows is a lot of show-off tricks. The fountain begins changing into enormous heads (this idea is familiar with Melies as well) and statues, as well as an enormous version of the frog himself. Pretty simple stuff for 1908. Not bad at all, just outdated even by the standards of the time and lacking a firm narrative. I'd also like to point out that the person playing the frog has some nice frog-like hops going there.

Sometimes, I enjoy randomly going through the internet and watching some of the earliest short films, and within these journeys I always am left impressed and fascinated by the amount of effort and vision these past filmmakers really had. Within the earliest years of cinema, filmmakers managed to, despite extremely limited technology, expand upon past art forms. They expressed through images what the most mystical fairy tales did with words. They created moving paintings, working as a guide to escape and wonder. This underrated and brief silent is among the most prominent examples of an ancient film that still impresses and awes today. Using creative and clever visuals, a surreal odyssey of madness flashes before the audience's eyes in this brief fantasy. It is amazing watching such old art and realizing that it is still magical to this very day.

"The Frog" is a short film by Segundo de Chomón and it appears very strongly influenced by the films of Georges Méliès. Segundo often used many of the techniques created by Méliès--such as stopping and restarting the camera to make things seem to appear and disappear. Today it looks rather crudely done, but back in the day this was pretty hot stuff."The Frog" is a film that is pretty amazing to look at even today. This is because it is beautifully hand-colored--something the studio did quite often, though few of these colored films looked as well stenciled and well done as this one. Likewise, technically the film is very well done and composed.Now comes the bad part--the plot is a complete mess. It begins with a lady seeing a giant frog by the fountain. Then, with no explanation, the fountain keeps changing--becoming a giant head (huh?!) as well as various arrangement of actors playing statues. This really looks like the director was using stop-motion but with no real theme or clear idea why. Interesting but seriously flawed.