Popeye
When Robert Altman decides to do a live action adaptation of Popeye, one might expect what we usually get in live action versions of cartoons: a nod to the concepts, the look of the characters, the plots of the cartoons, but still solidly founded in the real world. Nope. If Altman was going to do a live action Popeye, he was really going to do Popeye.
Popeye is a shockingly grotesque experience, with Robin Williams’s version of the character sporting massive forearms and a studied squint, babbling and dancing around like…well, like a cartoon. It says something when Williams is one of the calmer, more realistic performers in a film. Everyone is a real-life cartoon, down to Shelley Duvall’s all-too-realistic Olive Oyl, Paul Dooley’s constantly hungry Wimpy, and Paul L. Smith’s hulking Bluto. This is the cartoon and then some, as Popeye dances, sings, and boxes his way around the coastal town of Sweethaven.
Popeye is a weird film without ever being an entirely good one, but somehow it begins to grow on you as you get used to the odd look and odder characters. Remember that this is a cartoon, a real world version of a very weird concept. Williams and Duvall in particular are excellent, dedicated to their characters and quickly likable. No one but Altman could have made a film like this – it’s certainly unlike any other.
Published: Mar 22, 2015 11:53 pm