Popeye

Miss Duvall is superb - genteely ladylike one minute, a woman of volcanic passions the next. Read full review

The picture doesn't come together and much of it is cluttered, squawky, and eerily unfunny. But there are lovely moments --especially when Olive is loping along or singing, and when she and Popeye are gazing adoringly at the foundling Swee'Pea (Wesley Ivan Hurt).

It is more than faint praise to say that Popeye is far, far better than it might have been, considering the treacherous challenge it presented. But avoiding disaster is not necessarily the same as success. Read full review

Robert Altman's busy, detailed mise-en-scene, flattened cartoon-style through space-compacting long lenses, does capture some of the frenetic atmosphere of the Fleischer cartoons, but it tends to crowd out, and neutralize, the story values. Read full review

This is high-risk chemistry, and the results are bizarre. The bulging forearms and corncob pipe are in place, but this Popeye hates spinach. The plot hinges on his Oedipal search for his Pappy (Ray Walston), the songs and minimal dances are designed for singers who can't sing and dancers who can't dance, and this gruff icon of pug nacious, all-American goodness has been set adrift on an abstract isle that can perhaps best be described as backlot Ionesco. Popeye's air of alienated whimsy makes for an odd family movie indeed. [22 Dec 1980, p.72]

The film's real star is its magnificent set (filmed and constructed in Malta), though Williams manages to screw up his face and eye in a credible imitation of the drawings, and Duvall is perfect as the gangly Olive Oyl. Read full review