Posts about Popeye (movie)
It's a remake of the comic strip / animated toon Popeye. From the special features on the Blu-Ray, it's specifically a remake of the COMIC. How did this get funded 50 years after the comic's debut?
The high point is either the cafe fight or boxing fight, with a lot of comic visual gags in a short period of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn-qSWegNGA
There's an amazing shot where Popeye rolls away like a wagon wheel and I assume it was acheieved with a specially built wheel that looks like Popeye. Half the movie is basically the Harrison Ford Clickhole saga.
It's one of the worst plots I've seen. A completely reheated plot from other, better movies. Popeye needs to fall in love and find his father. Full on 2/10 plot for me.
Half of Shelley Duvall's lines as Olive Oyl are "ooooh" and she's amazing as the nagging 1930s love interest. Robin Williams' mumbling asides as Popeye are also funny.
With your hand on fast-forward or your phone, it's worth a look. The opening is intentionally less cartoonish, to allow Popeye to grow into a comic character. Probably why I found the first 15-20 minutes (leading up to the gag-heavy bar fight) so slow.
There's a Euro cut which is 93 minutes. Some good gags got cut which is a shame, since it should be the one to watch. It cuts the window scene (13 seconds, at 35m or 43m) which is unforgivable. My cut would include as much of the tooniness as possible while shortening the molasses-slow baby/father plot. The Disney EU recut is more about getting to the end of the plot while avoiding some of the toon silliness that doesn't advance the "plot".
https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/comments/mxrec3/today_i_learned_the_ukeuropean_release_of_robert/
https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=819543
Also cuts the Bluto I'm Mad song which has some toon destruction.
Good that Disney cut these for Europe:
Sail/stay with me
Pappy / mean large song
For the love of god, 2 minutes quicker to the island
One person calls Popeye unsavable:
For me, one example would be Robert Altman's Popeye. One can cut out all the dreadful songs by the usually dependable Harry Nilsson. One can even make cuts to pick up the pace of the film. But what the movie desperately cries out for is a knock-down, drag-out fight between Popeye and Bluto to match the best of their animated bouts. But no such footage exists. There's that one lame hit that Popeye throws, and Bluto swims away, and...it's all over. It's so anti-climactic.
The special features say that they didn't know how to end it until after filming started. Robin jokingly suggested he could walk on water like Jesus. Altman said "YES!" and that's what they did. It really shows in the movie how slapdash the story beats are.
VAN DYKE PARKS arranged and orchestrated the music. I shouted when I saw his name in the credits. He's the legend most known for collaborating with Brian Wilson / The Beach Boys on the mythical, decades-underground "SMiLE" (from which Good Vibrations was created).
All told, I'll give the "flawed but visually interesting comic adaptation with a surprising musician collaborator" award to Dick Tracy (1990), but this is a close #2.
Harvard Film Archive Revisits Robert Altman's 'Popeye'
edit: Wikipedia page may be of interest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye_(film)#Legacy
Look up "Roads Not Taken in Hollywood’s Comic Book Movie Industry" on sci-hub too. Interesting-looking article on Popeye, Dick Tracy, and Hulk. That's where I got the idea to watch Popeye, from doing research on Dick Tracy.
