During a Rolling Stone interview, Robin Williams reflected on his breakthrough 1980s films, praising The World According to Garp whilst expressing severe reservations about Robert Altman's Popeye, which marked his first major leading role. He described the film's dialogue as so unclear that extensive dubbing sessions were necessary to make it intelligible to audiences.

Williams found the Popeye premiere disturbing enough to invoke Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as an unlikely point of reference, characterising the overall experience as psychedelic and disorienting. Though initially poorly received, the unconventional adaptation has since attracted modern viewers drawn to Altman's distinctive creative vision and the film's deliberate embrace of visual eccentricity and narrative abstraction.