"More than anything else, Popeye stands as an oasis of eccentricity in a genre so doggedly devoted to fan service that much of it is staid and boring. It’s not the platonic ideal of a comic book movie but it’s the platonic ideal of trying something a little different with the material, an ambitious attempt to see how much of this odd little world could be made real for a little while. Maybe not all of it works, but the fact that it exists is remarkable enough."

-Gena Radcliffe

"a thoroughly charming, immensely appealing mess of a movie, often high-spirited and witty, occasionally pretentious and flat, sometimes robustly funny and frequently unintelligible. It is, in short, a very mixed bag."

-Vincent Canby of The New York Times

Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson is a noted fan of the film, listing it as a favorite, even using Duvall's song, "He Needs Me", in his own film, Punch-Drunk Love.