What a disappointment! I really want to love this movie but I just cannot. Casting was inspired- Williams is an almost perfect Popeye, Duvall was born to play Olive. Paul Dooley is a great Wimpy but this film does not work for me. I often love Altmans movies-Mash, Gosford Park are wonderful films but the whole tone of this is wrong. The opening sequence is dark and forbidding with a troubled sea and it seems to set the tone. I hate the songs, which are instantly forgettable, and I feel that it would have worked better without the musical element.Every time this appears on TV I attempt to watch it but never get more than 10 minutes or so into it before I lose interest and switch off. Many years ago I saw a section of the middle and that too lost my interest. How people can love Popeye is beyond me. I always loved the original cartoons and they still make me laugh and wonder at the surreal stories and actions. I know the movie as it was made then could never be like that (it could be done now) and I think I understand what Altman was trying to do but I feel it was a disaster artistically as well as commercially. Wrong director for this subject.
Review of Popeye
