Based on the enduring
character Popeye the Sailor Man, a popular attraction in comic strips and
cartoons since the Depression era, this big-budget musical comedy was such an
embarrassing misfire that it’s amazing the principals behind the film were able
to sustain careers afterward. For leading man Robin Williams, who chose this project
for his first big-screen starring role after conquering television with Mork & Mindy, the picture led to a
stint in “movie jail” that didn’t end until he took a dramatic turn in The World According to Garp (1982). And
for director Robert Altman, who should have known better, Popeye dissipated what remained of the goodwill earned by hits including M*A*S*H (1970) and Nashville (1975)—after Popeye,
Altman spent more than a decade making low-budget oddities until returning to
the A-list with The Player (1992).
Allowing that some folks consider the movie to be a quirky gem, Popeye is likely to strike most viewers
as awkward and boring and silly right from the get-go. Amid preposterously
elaborate production design that includes an entire seaside village built from
scratch, Williams plays Popeye with prosthetics on his arms that make Williams look
as if he’s smuggling hams under the skin beneath his wrists and his elbows.
Like everyone around him, Williams (badly) sings arty little ditties penned by
the idiosyncratic rock musician Harry Nilsson. Meanwhile, Altman regular
Shelley Duvall plays Olive Oyl as a mess of goofy pratfalls and shrill noises, while offbeat actors ranging from Paul Dooley to
Bill Irwin to Paul Smith (best remembered as a would-be rapist in 1978’s Midnight Express) personify one-joke
characters with performances of astonishing monotony.
All of these resources
are put in the service of a turgid story about Popeye competing with the brutish
Bluto (Smith) for Olive’s hand, about Popeye and Olive becoming the surrogate
parents for an orphaned baby named Swee’Pea, and about Popeye reconnecting with
his long-lost dad, Poopdeck Pappy (Ray Walston). There’s also a big fight with
an octopus, and, naturally, lots of spinach. While it might seem small-minded
to criticize Altman and his collaborators for trying to blend unusual elements,
there’s nothing quite so inert as a failed experiment in genre-splicing. As
penned by satirist Jules Feiffer, who shares an insouciant approach to comedy
with Altman and Nilsson, Popeye
clearly wants to be entertaining and ironic simultaneously. Instead, it’s too
plodding and stupid for cerebral viewers, and too weird for casual watchers.
It’s fair to say there’s never been a movie exactly like Popeye—an arthouse cartoon, if you will—but that’s not meant as
praise.
Popeye:
LAME
