Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Popeye the Sailor" is a black-and-white cartoon from over 80 years ago made by the legendary Fleischer brothers. If you know a bit about Popeye, you will find the usual ingredient in here. It runs for roughly 7.5-minutes like most other cartoons from that era, features the title character with his spinach and Olive and Bluto are included already as well. Olive is pretty rough when other sailors try to make a move on her as all she wants is Popeye. Unfortunately, I must say that this little movie did not really impress me. I have seen other Popeye short films that were a lot better, for example the very famous Popeye vs Sindbad cartoon. None of the action in here (nor the inclusion of Betty Boop promoting Popeye), or the animation, felt truly witty or memorable and that is why I will not recommend it.

A_Different_Drummer In his day Dave Fleischer was the best of the best when it came to animation. The Nicola Tesla of cartoons if you like. (No, younger readers, that does not mean he made CARS). Some of the other reviewers nailed it when they pointed out, with props to both men, that, frame by frame Fleischer was better than Disney. (Of course, a century later, more or less, we see that Disney was the better businessman, which is why your kids aren't bugging you for a vacation to FleischerLand). The animation, the cell work, was astonishing. The concepts were astonishing. The blending of music and action were astonishing. Believe it or not, late in his career Fleischer experimented with a strange kind of "3D animation" (intended of course for 2D projection on theatre screens SINCE TV HAD NOT EVEN BEEN INVENTED.) And a decade after this film, he did a Superman cartoon which, as other reviewers on IMDb have acknowledged, was decades ahead of its time, and holds up well even for viewing today. Wow. What an artist.

MartinHafer While I have never been a huge fan of Popeye because the cartoons are so darn repetitive, this very first Popeye is well worth seeing--for historical reasons, because it was significantly better than the efforts of most other studios (which tended towards cutesy singing cartoons) and because it was so original at that time. However, the Fleischer Studios was a bit hesitant to just toss Popeye out there and hope that people will like him. Instead, they billed this as a Betty Boop cartoon on the title screen. Additionally, Betty makes a short but risqué appearance mid-way through the film--sort of like she was giving her seal of approval to the series.One big difference between this and most of the later Popeye cartoons is with Olive Oyl. Her voice was not provided by the usual Mae Questel (also the voice of Betty Boop). Olive's horribly annoying voice is not so annoying and Bonnie Poe's voice is noticeably deeper and less migraine-inducing! Aside from that, the cartoon is pretty much like any of the early Popeyes. The art work is the usual beautifully detailed black & white Fleischer animation that you can't help but respect. Bluto and Popeye do their usual routines, though Popeye does seem a bit more macho without his spinach than later films and so the difference that the spinach makes is less notable. Also, notice the final scene where our hero saves Olive--and possibly kills a train load of innocent people in the process! One sad thing in the film many won't notice is the carnival bit where Popeye and the rest are throwing balls at a guy's head. Such ball throwing booths were common back then and involved throwing baseballs at a Black man's face! While the guy in the cartoon is pretty cartoony, he is Black skinned and this is a sick little aspect of the 1930s that has been forgotten--and that probably isn't a bad thing at all.

Michael_Elliott Popeye the Sailor (1933) **** (out of 4) First film in the series of shorts was also the first I've seen of any of these early films. I watched some of the later ones when I was a kid and I wasn't sure what to expect out of these theatrical shorts but this first one was great. Popeye takes Olive Oyl to a fair when Bluto shows up to start trouble. There's a lot of great humor here and I really loved the animation style. The opening scene of Popeye singing his famous song is priceless as is the appearance by Betty Boop.Now available through Warner in a 4-disc box set.