IHAO on ... Popeye

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Rotten Tomatoes - Critics 57% ; Audience 38%

Flickchart - 3778 of 28311 i.e. in the top five percent

IMDB - 5.1 rating

Metacritic - 48

Amazon.com - 4.0 stars

Popeye the sailor man *toot toot* is a particularly famous character, with perhaps the most famous forearms of any person or character, and 100% the most famous eating habits to provide him with his heroic powers.  Robin Williams *toot toot* is a particularly famous character, with perhaps the most famous obnoxious comedy career of any person or character, and 100% the most famous changing-funny-characters-in-kids-movies habits provided by his villainous pop culture powers.  Shelley Duval *toot toot* is a particularly famous actress, with perhaps the most famous tall stretched-like-Gumby body of any woman or character, and 100% is the only actress who could have played Olive Oyl.

I'm going to stop doing that.  I'm just wasting time.  I don't care how good the stats up there say this movie is.  Popeye sucks.

Goodnight.  I'm done.

What?  What do you want me to say?  After this whole week, after all the garbage I've had to sit through, you want me to actually give some kind of care in the world about the point-by-point analysis of one of the worst musicals I've ever seen in my life?  Why?  Why do you care?  You knew the movies I was reviewing this week were going to be terrible.  That's why they were suggested.  Why did I even do this to myself at all?

You know what, I got my pride.  I got my dignity.  I got my drive to actually make something of myself in the world through my writing and my critiquing of films suggested to me and that I search out for the entertainment and inform-ment of the masses ... of 30ish people that read this site.  Fine, I'll do it.

First things first, the production design is really cool.  They built a whole city on the cliffs, complete with working ships of fabulous design and all sorts of working parts and interesting, cartoony visuals.  The costuming and hair and make up for everyone is really awesome, too.  They all look like actually living cartoon characters, and when the film does little tiny moments of cartoonism, it works sometimes, mostly on the strength of the designs.  And every now and again, a joke works.  Not every joke.  Not even most jokes.  Some jokes.  But finding those good jokes is like searching for M&Ms in a bowl filled with flour ... with your mouth.

And that's all.  That's the end of the good things in this movie.  I couldn't even make it through the single paragraph in this review dedicated to good things about Popeye without pointing out its blandness and badness.  I ignored the part about how bland and boring all the color schemes are.  Everything is in browns and blues, and it just looks like mud and dirt and water and every now and again somewhere wears red.  It is maddeningly bland.

There is not a story, but a serious of happenings.  Popeye arrives.  Olive Oyl breaks her engagement.  They find a baby.  They go to the tracks.  Popeye wins a boxing match.  They meet Popeye's lost father.  Bluto captures Olive Oyl.  Popeye fights an Octopus.  Nothing segues from one thing to the next.  They just happen, with uninteresting, uninspired, boring and repetitive musical numbers mixed in.  You'd think with the energy and fervor of Popeye cartoons, that some of that would translate.  You'd think with the supposedly amazing group of people working on this film, it would be good.  But its award winning director, cinematographer, writer, and composer all just look like amateurs.  This movie makes it look like they just do not know what they are doing.  AT ALL.

The musical nature of the film is an after thought, which even the movie doesn't care about, so why the hell should I?  Characters constantly talk over the musical numbers, or other things are happening while people are singing and dancing.  Not high tempo singing and dancing though.  This movie must think it is in a backwards musical variation of Speed: if the tempo of a song goes above 60 bpm (beats per minute) then everyone in the audience will die in an explosion.  I wish I had.

Actually, can I be the guy on the motorcycle?  Also, this movie?  Gonna get a review soon.  It's nuts.

Ok, that isn't true.  I don't wish death on myself.  Or really on anyone in the movie.  The actors don't do a bad job of embodying the characters, and all have little bits and quirks to make them be more cartoony.  But the film itself doesn't care about that.  There's no focus given to any of it.  Everything is played basically straight, which brings everything down.  It takes all the vim and vinegar, all the lock, stock, and barrel, all the song and dance, all the FUN out of the movie.  This film is mirthless, and unenjoyable.  I don't hate it as much as I've hated other films ... but I certainly do hate it.  And it is absolutely terrible.

Grade: F--

• June 3^rd – Gigli (from Rachel Runion)  Grade: C
• June 4^th – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (from Joel Gould)  Grade: D--
• June 5^th – Lenny the Wonder Dog (from Jason Schmidt)  Grade: F+
• June 6^th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)  Grade: F---
• June 7^th – The Cat from Outer Space (from Nicole Clockel)  Grade: B+
• June 8^th – Popeye (from Drew Turner)  Grade: F--
• June 9^th – SURPRISE JESSEL'S ALMOST-MOST HATED MOVIE!!

And look at that, tomorrow we get to the surprise review.  I hope you are excited, because I bet I'll be making a bunch of you angry!!  See ya tomorrow!