Popeye

Every once in a great while, something truly odd sneaks it's way through the Hollywood system. Something with very limited box office potential winds up getting tens millions of dollars poured into it. An uncommercial director is given a ridiculous amount freedom to construct a grand vision. These rare movies are usually financial disappointments, and often creative disappointments as well, but they're usually at least interesting to watch. In fact, I often like an interesting failure more than a well-made but typical Hollywood product, and as a result, I am much more forgiving of Speed Racer and Ang Lee's Hulk movie than either film probably deserves.

Something that always interests me is when a filmmaker known for making grown-up movies makes a kids film. George Miller knocked it out of the park 15 years ago with Babe (whose sequel, Pig in the City, is one of the strangest huge-budget movies ever, by the way). So did Wes Anderson with Fantastic Mr. Fox. Martin Scorsese has one coming out at the end of the year, and I totally can't wait to see it. Popeye was Robert Altman's entry.

Robert Altman's Popeye is perhaps one of the better cinematic oddities out there. It's not a perfect film (these movies rarely are), but it's certainly not a failure. It's just really weird. It's hard to believe that producer Robert Evans managed to get funding for this insane movie. But am I glad that he did? You betcha.

Altman made a live action cartoon, with it's own self contained laws of physics. With the town of Sweet Haven, he created a complete miniature world that feels lived in and alive. The extras appear to be entirely made up of tumblers and acrobats so they can bounce around and do all sorts of physical comedy.

The songs are pretty awesome. They're written by Harry Nillson and arranged by Van Dyke Parks. You can totally hear the Van Dyke Parks in there. Lots of Pet Sounds-style orchestration. The actors don't have to worry about nailing any high notes, because the songs are sung in the character's voices.

Robin Williams, Shelley Duvall and the rest of the cast are all pretty perfect. That's no surprise. We all know that Altman was great at casting. But the great casting leads to one of the movie's greatest failings: Popeye is mumbly and incoherent and Olive Oyl is shrill and obnoxious. But you know what? They're kind of supposed to be. That's how they always were in the cartoons too. Much of the dialogue had to be overdubbed, presumably because nobody could understand a word Robin Williams was saying.

The other thing that doesn't quite work is the finale. Altman did what he could, but that damn octopus puppet clearly would not cooperate. It looks like a piece of junk. The arms barely move, and when the actors aren't holding them in their hands and shaking them around, they just float motionless in the water. It's kind of anticlimactic when the monster you're supposed to battle just kind of droops there. Still, the movie ends with a battle with a giant octopus, something I can't say about most event movies (well, maybe Pirates 2).

Popeye was a production out of control, went insanely overbudget, and was shot far, far away from studio executives. As a result, we got a truly bizarre family movie, strange even by Robert Altman standards. It's known as one of the biggest disasters in cinema history, and it damaged Altman's directing career for the entirety of the 80's. It is also known as an enduring cult classic. It's not a movie for everyone, but the right people (people like me) are going to dig it. And dig it I did.

Popeye: B+