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Absolutely Fantastic

It is so daring, it is so ambitious, it is so thrilling and weird and pointed and powerful. I never knew where it was going.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Did that not because the movie is not well made, which it is indeed (although i expected it to be better!) but because i never liked the original Popeye cartoons as a kid ...i loved Felix The Cat, or Betty Boope and the mandatory Mickey Mouse and even the creepy old Koco The Clown, which did keep me watching despite being so boring as well as nightmarish ... and in spite of the fact that they were all at least two generations 'behind' me when i was a small child in the mid 1960s ... (my most fave was Heckle and Jeckle though, which decades later i found out it was mostly a banned cartoon in some US states ... and the Flintstones ... and well ... some others as well ...)but i never got to terms with Popeye, not even later when i grew up and developed a taste for some items i didn't quite like earlier ...

To start I want to say that I Marginally liked this film in 1980. Before 1978's Richard Donner's "Superman" there weren't too many comic/cartoon adaptations out there so we really didn't know what to expect from comic book movies. In Robert Altman's "Popeye" the audience didn't get that Altman was trying to make a cartoon come alive without animation. Robin Williams performance was spectacular as was Ray Walston's and Shelly Duvall. People didn't think it should have been a musical and that the music didn't work and critics trashed it so the stars and director disowned this film.Tim Burton's "Batman" in 1989 started to set the tone for what comic book movies should be but then the comic book themed movies fell apart with the rest of the Batman franchise until Christopher Nolan and Joss Whedon gave comic book movies a new direction.Now that there are comic book/cartoon movies out about every other month it would be great for younger viewers to revisit this film, I now find it delightful and hate to use the term "ahead of its time" but it really was!The only hard part now it that most younger viewers probably don't know who Popeye the Sailor man is and its too bad that Robin Williams is gone because a new film with him as Poop deck Pappy would be a lot of fun!

Robert Altman's "Popeye" (1980) features Robin Williams in the titular role, Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, Ray Walston as Pappy and others as Bluto, Wimpy and so on. These actors are outstanding as these characters, particularly Williams and Duvall. Unfortunately, I found the story boring and the excellent seaside Malta set too confining and therefore increasingly dull. If Altman would have included a more compelling story it would've worked better for adults. As it is, its appeal is limited to small kids, hardcore Popeye fans and devotees of Williams.The reason 1994's The Flintstones" and even the 2000 sequel worked so well (for me anyway) was because they both had interesting and entertaining stories. "Popeye" is dull by comparison, although somewhat amusing. If my wife -- who loves the movie -- wasn't with me I would've never gotten through it.The film runs 114 minutes (too long).GRADE: C-

Superb example of taking a cartoon character and doing absolutely nothing with it....absolutely no story , unsustainable noise that the producers try to pass off as music. "he needs me he needs me he needs me" ---What? You can't write another line of verse and find a word that rhymes with "me"? And, I didn't realize for the first few unending minutes that Poopdeck Pappy was supposed to be "singing" during the long, boring boat chase. Annoying background noise with him complaining about children or some such meaningless banter. The original Popeye The Sailorman song, performed at the end of this horrific mess, was the only thing even remotely true to the cartoon. Williams mumbles throughout the film and Duvall is just plain annoying. She's almost as annoying as in The Shining. This attempt at movie-making was written as they went along. terrible. I can only hope that the special town set they built for this tragedy went to the homeless locals in (Malta, was it?). Someone should benefit from the building of this fictitious town. Certainly moviegoers did not benefit. I was 27 in 1980. I remember walking out of the theater and thinking " what the heck!!!" It's on a movie channel right now and I am laughing very hard, both because of some of the reviews I've just read and am torturing myself (AGAIN)while watching a movie that is so ridiculously bad. Robin Williams...please donate your fee you got for this mess to some worthy charity, Maltan refugees.