Re-released just in time for Christmas (Lionsgate also released this title on DVD back in 2004), Popeye's Voyage: The Quest For Pappy remains an enjoyable Holiday yarn even if the CGI animation looks a little worse for wear.

When the cartoon begins, it's Christmas time and Popeye suddenly wakes up from a nightmare where he sees that his long, lost Pappy is in horrible danger. Popeye figures this is a sign that something is wrong and so he hops onto his boat and heads out into the Sea Of Mystery to search for his dear old dad with Brutus, Olive Oyl, Swee'Pea and Wimpy along for the ride. Popeye runs into a few snags along the way, however, when the dreaded Sea-Hag shows up and starts playing tricks on the crew in hopes of causing enough stress that their voyage will be ruined and that she'll be able to fulfill a prophecy and rule the seas.

The first thing that will stand out to established fans of the wily sailor man is the animation style used in this feature. While Popeye has been around for decades he's always been traditionally - here he's completely computer generated along with everything else in the movie. This takes some getting used to, as it looks very different despite the familiar character design and character traits and costumes we see throughout. The other aspect of the production that is really jarring is that here, Popeye seems very much a toned down version of his former self. In the past, he was prone to solving his problems with his fists and if someone got in his way, he'd knock them down without a second thought. The man always had a can of spinach on hand to boost his strength rarely because he's need it to perform feats of strength but more often so that he could beat the snot out of someone who had annoyed him or hit on his lady friend. We see very little of that here, and it's as if Popeye has been sanitized to make the character a little more politically correct and a little more kid friendly.

As far as the quality of the animation itself is concerned, the production could have been better but so too could it have fared much worse. While the characters look a little odd in 3-D, they are least look right in terms of mannerisms, outfits, quirks and facial features. They are well rendered and the movements are fairly fluid. On the other hand, CGI has improved by leaps and bounds in the last couple of years and despite the fact that this production is only a few years old, it doesn't look great compared to more modern computer animated material.

That said, there's enough familiarity here, 'Popeye-isms' if you will, that it's not hard to enjoy this if you come in with the right expectations. This is strictly family fare from start to finish and on that level it's a fun time killer even if the whole 'Christmas' sub-plot feels like it was tacked on at the last minute as the story really could take place any time of the year and play just as well. The script, written by Paul Reiser of all people, has a few good lines and some decent jokes and at roughly forty-five minutes in length the picture doesn't over stay its welcome. Voice work is solid throughout (Billy West of Ren & Stimpy does Popeye and Pappy and Kathy Bates of all people voices the Sea-Hag!) and the story is not without its own goofy charm making the movie easy to watch and more enjoyable than most will probably expect.

Video:

Popeye's Voyage: The Quest For Pappy is unfortunately presented in a 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio, panned and scanned from its original 1.85.1 widescreen aspect ratio - this means it's cropped, and if you pay any attention at all to some of the compositions, you're probably going to notice it a few times. The transfer has also not been flagged for progressive scan playback, so expect to see some combing if your setup is configured that way. Thankfully it doesn't render the movie unwatchable as most of the action stays in the frame. As far as the quality of the picture goes, the colors look great and there aren't any mpeg compression artifacts. A little bit of line shimmering is noticeable in some of the backgrounds from time to time but aside from that the quality is strong here.