Popeye vs. The Forty Thieves: A chaotic desert fever dream

Is it worth your time?

If you have twenty minutes and a craving for absolute visual bedlam, yes. It is pure, concentrated energy that makes modern animation look like it is moving through molasses. If you prefer your stories to be calm, logical, or even remotely grounded in physics, stay far away.

This isn't a movie you sit down to analyze. It is a movie you survive. The Fleischer brothers were clearly working on a different frequency than everyone else.

The desert is a strange place

The backgrounds in this one are these bizarre, multi-plane things that feel like they go on forever. It makes the whole desert feel like a trap. The way Abu Hassan moves—kind of slithering around while he counts his thieves—is genuinely creepy. He is not a cartoon villain you laugh at; he’s a guy who would absolutely steal your lunch money and then set your house on fire. 🔥

And Wimpy. God, I love how little he cares about the plot. Everyone is terrified of forty armed bandits, and he is just looking for a hamburger. His commitment to laziness is honestly inspiring.

• That moment when Popeye eats his spinach is still one of the most aggressive things ever put on film.
• The way the thieves just kind of multiply in the cave is weirdly hypnotic.
• I swear the sound design in this is 50% yelling and 50% metallic clanking.

It is way more violent than I remembered. There is a lot of punching. Like, a lot. The impact of Popeye's fist hitting someone's face has this specific, hollow sound that feels like a shovel hitting a tin roof. It is loud and it is satisfying.

There is no padding here. Unlike some of those slower, more sentimental films like The Apple-Tree Girl, this thing just launches you directly into the action. It is a straight shot of adrenaline from the first frame to the last. It feels less like a narrative and more like a series of escalating panic attacks.

Sometimes the animation goes completely off the rails and the proportions of the characters just sort of give up. Does it matter? Not really. It adds to the manic feel of the whole thing. It is messy, it is loud, and it is weirdly delightful. Just don't go looking for the deep emotional layers found in something like La crise est finie. You won't find them here, and that is perfectly okay.

I left this feeling like I had just drank five cups of espresso. ☕️