Review: Popeye

Robin Williams stars as the title forearm-heavy sailor who comes to the town of Sweethaven, renting a room with the Oyls. Popeye is searching for his long-lost pappy, but in the meantime strikes up a relationship with the ungainly Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall, in the role everyone agrees she was born to play), after they find an abandoned baby whom Popeye names Swee’pea. Olive, however is engaged to the hulking and frankly mean-spirited Brutus. Paul Dooley plays hamburger-loving Wimpy, Ray Walston plays the very familiar-looking (and sounding) Poopdeck Pappy, whilst (a debuting) Linda Hunt and (an almost unrecognisable) Dennis Franz can be seen in small roles.

 

Notorious 1980 misfire from director Robert Altman (“Nashville”, “The Player”, “Short Cuts”) could’ve potentially killed Robin Williams’ career in just his first starring vehicle. All these years later, one has to admit that it’s not a terrible film (nor was it a box-office flop like everyone seems to mistakenly recall), just a failed one that probably should never have been made. With Altman all wrong in the director’s chair this was poorly scripted by Jules Feiffer (“Carnal Knowledge”, of all things), and they just don’t have a clue what’s funny. It’s all over-stylised and heavy-handed. It’s no fun at all.

 

More than anything, I just don’t think the Elsie C. Segar comic strip (nor the Max Fleischer cartoon) is appropriate material for a film adaptation in the first place. There’s just not enough depth to any of the characters, and it leaves the actors one-dimensional cartoons to play instead. Nowhere is this more evident than in the lead performance given by Robin Williams (in only his second feature film appearance). He later proved in the animated “Aladdin” that a cartoon character doesn’t always restrain him as a performer, but in this instance, the gruff-voiced, disproportionately muscular sailor does indeed restrict Williams as a performer. The naturally dynamic actor looks the part and does as well as anyone could possibly do. However, the mumbly Popeye is frankly not an interesting or appealing character, and there’s nothing Williams can do about it. Popeye the Sailor Man is a bit of a bore, I’m afraid and Williams lacks energy for once. Williams can play Popeye, but perhaps he shouldn’t have bothered.

 

On the bright side, Shelley Duvall practically is Olive Oyl, and both Paul L. Smith (as Bluto as anyone could be) and Ray Walston are good enough in their roles that you wish they were in more of the film. In fact, as Poopdeck Pappy, Walston is probably the only person who does Popeye better than Williams has managed (For starters, you can understand all of Walston’s dialogue). The sound FX are cute, especially as implemented in an enjoyable barroom brawl that also nicely employs the familiar theme tune.

 

On the whole, the film itself is alternately dull and annoying, partly due to the awful decision by Altman to make it a musical, with songs by (of all people) Harry Nilsson. ‘I Yam What I Yam’ is especially bad, with only Olive Oyl’s ‘He Needs Me’ standing out in a good way. The rest are badly sung duds. A lot of attention has been paid to set design and costuming, whilst no one seems to have realised that there’s no film to be made of this material. The first half is especially lacking in plot and character development. The romance between Popeye and Olive Oyl is particularly underdone.

 

Look, the cast try hard, but this is dull, if not as outright terrible as its reputation might suggest. The film has its staunch defenders, but I found it pretty unfunny and unenjoyable. 

 

Rating: C