ridiculous rating

disgusting, overrated, pointless

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I was around six or seven years old when this movie came out and my parents allowed me to watch it. Through the years, whenever it would come on TV, I would sit and watch it religiously. Then, it completely disappeared from the lexicon of television and movies. Now, you can only buy a region 1 DVD copy on eBay or Amazon for ridiculous prices, or you can buy it on Amazon streaming for $10. It has probably been well on a decade or more since I last watched this film. I recently bought a Drop Dead Fred T-shirt and finally decided to buy the movie on Amazon streaming. I watched it today and realized that the message of the movie has been the message I have lived my life by ever since first watching the film 25 years ago. Love it, or hate it, this film has a wonderful message, and while the antics of Elizabeth and Fred may seem extremely juvenile to most people, it is those very people whom the film is trying to fight against. Lizzie grew up with a mother who didn't love her. Her mother even admits to her at the very end of the film that she shouldn't have had a child to save a marriage that ended up being unable to save. Having a strict mother who expected nothing but perfection from a very young child only goes to prove how much this child needed a creative and imaginative outlet, and found that in the form of her imaginary friend, Drop Dead Fred. As an adult, Lizzy is struggling to cope with her husband's cheating and her overbearing mother wanting to take control of her life again. Because her mother stifled her imagination by getting rid of Drop Dead Fred when Lizzie was a child, she now needs his ridiculousness and his guidance to find herself again and to find her confidence to stand up to people in her life and tell them that she needs to be in control of herself. She then becomes lighthearted again and learns to fall in love for her and no one else. At the age of almost 32, I am a high school English teacher with a masters degree, and the message that I have always tried to live my life by and maintain for myself as I get older is to never lose my childlike innocence. No matter how old I get, no matter how serious life can be, and no matter how many outside forces try to bring me down, it is important for me to never forget my sense of wonder that I had as a child, and that is the very message that this film tries to portray. This is one of my very favorite childhood movies and will forever remain such an important film in my development. I can't wait to show it to my students in film studies next week to leave them with a wonderful, uplifting message to start their summer vacation with!!!! I only wish more people could appreciate this film and understand the many great metaphors hidden throughout!

Daughter of control freak mother has an imaginary (English) friend who she can blame for doing all the malicious, obscene and childish stuff her mother has tried to suppress in her. Except she's an adult - for some of the movie, that is.DDF takes an age to get going. By the time it does, you're failing to understand why Elizabeth (Phoebe Cates) hasn't been sectioned long ago. Is it because her mother is apparently very rich? There is just not enough subtlety in the way Elizabeth's disastrous dependence on Fred is portrayed. Time and again she acts out her most disgusting and destructive impulses in some stilted slapstick, only for the blaming of 'Fred'(Rik Mayall) to make everything all right.As a kind of primer in psychological metaphor, DDF has a lot going for it. But then it's a Disney children's film. Oh no it isn't, it's a gross-out comedy - no, wait, it's a rom-com. It all comes down to whether you can find any time for Rik Mayall's "punk Gene Wilder" act. Very clever, very hard work, and some pathos among the madness, but the movie's premise is developed so slowly the whole thing gets very tedious.

"OH, this is STUPID. We ought to be in a store that sells harpoons and nets and hammers. That way, we could harpoon Charles straight through the head, drag him back to the apartment, and then hit him with the hammer until he agrees to come back. It's a BRILLIANT plan." -Fred"Well, remember your house?...It...sank. I mean, it's all still THERE...it's just...not so near the...top of the water."-Elizabeth"I'm been pounded flat by the anvil of love like a piece of veal with a salad on top."-Charles"PIRATES!!!! ...We'll sail the seven seas...we'll put on eye patches...we'll cut off our legs and glue on wooden ones!!" -Fred

At the age of 5 "Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Cronin" (Phoebe Cates) was sad and lonely. So she developed an imaginary friend she called, "Drop Dead Fred" (Rik Mayall). But time passes and she eventually forgets about him. Until she loses her husband "Charles" (Tim Matheson), her job and her car all on the same day. She then becomes sad and lonely. And Drop Dead Fred reappears. Now, normally a friend who returns after so many years wouldn't be such a bad thing. But this isn't any "normal" friend. Instead he's an obnoxious and destructive influence who was always getting her into trouble. And while she may have grown up, he has not. Anyway, as far as this movie is concerned, I thought it got off to a rather rough start but things began to get really funny immediately after the "houseboat scene" when "Janie" (Carrie Fisher) tries to take matters into her own hands. Likewise, the restaurant scene was quite funny as well. Having said that though, there were other scenes which weren't nearly as good and this caused the movie to seem uneven. I thought Marsha Mason (as "Polly Cronin") looked great. But as far as the acting was concerned, other than Phoebe Cates and Carrie Fisher, I didn't really care for anybody else in the cast. And as far as that goes, Rik Mayall made me cringe every time he appeared as he was just too over-the-top. Even so, this wasn't a bad movie necessarily and it did have some good moments as I have already mentioned. That said, I have no doubts that some will really enjoy it. But to me it was only average.