Popeye (1980) review

Squinty-eyed sailor Popeye (Robin Williams, mutterin' like W.C. Fields) goes to the town of Sweethaven, rents a room, meets Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall), they become surrogate parents to abandoned baby Swee'Pea (Wesley Ivan Hurt), he finds his long-lost father Poopdeck Pappy (Ray Walston) and then has to save the day by fighting burly Bluto (Paul L. Smith) ... as well as a toy octopus.  It attempts, in parts, to replicate the comic book-like over-exaggeration of the famous strip by E. C. Segar but the timing is completely off - you know something's amiss when one of the greatest comedians who has ever lived can't muster even a slight chuckle - and the songs by Harry Nilsson are positively grating on the nerves (although Paul Thomas Anderson made good use out of "He Needs Me" for Punch-Drunk Love).  I think it just might be that Altman and screenwriter Jules Feiffer weren't quite fit for the subject - both of them were too high-minded to properly humor cartoonish tomfoolery.