"Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" is a Popeye cartoon from 1939, so it has color of course, but what really stands out in this Fleischer production is the running time as cartoons of almost 25 minutes were the big exception back then as the average was around 7 minutes. This is one of the two long Popeye shorts, the longer actually and this takes us into the world of Aladdin, but the story is really very different compared to the famous Disney movie. Not only is there no Apu and the characters look different as this takes place in the Popeye universe, but the story also feels extremely different. The damsel in distress component here better fits in for a film from the Medieval Ages in my opinion and honestly I struggled to see anything in Olive for which I would say to Popeye: Yes save her for that. The animation, also attention to detail is as good as you want it to be for a cartoon from that era and the set decoration is also really nice. The magic genie, however, did almost nothing for me. And the fact thjat creativity is there also does not mean in this case that it is a funny film. Bold maybe, entertaining not really. The only kinda funny moment I had watching this one was the scene where the bad guy rubs the lamp and Popeye rubs the spinach tin in response. Perhaps the usual 6-7 minutes might have been the better choice as honestly I cannot agree with the imdb rating here as there are quite a few pointless and completely forgettable sequences. I'd recommend this short only to the very biggest Popeye fans and the fact that it is among his most known, doesn't exactly say anything really positive about the franchise, even if it is mostly because it is so different compared to the others in terms of several production values. Watch something else instead.
