Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (October 8, 2024)
Back during college in the mid-1980s, Caligula occasionally played some midnight showings in town and it became a "must see" for all us young perverts. I don’t feel quite sure why so many of us found it so compelling, but attend it in droves we did.
Unfortunately, I had to go home for the weekend when Caligula initially played our town, so I couldn't attend it with my friends. I didn't think it seemed like much of a loss until I heard them talk about it.
Caligula sounded like the most insanely obscene movie ever made. How could I miss that?
As such, I rented the movie on videotape, but felt sorely disappointed by what I saw. Where was all the smut and violence my friends had related to me?
That's when I discovered that they saw the unrated version, whereas I was stuck with an edited cut that dropped a whopping 54 minutes of lurid footage. No wonder I thought the movie stunk.
Happily, the uncut version appeared via another screening a few months later. At that time, my friends and I piled into the theater.
Even though Caligula seemed hilariously perverse and graphic, it still sucked. This felt like filmmaking at its worst.
With this “new” “Ultimate Edition”, we get a reassembled version of the film. Via the use of unused and alternate footage, it attempts to deliver a take on Caligula more in line with a serious drama.
Unfortunately, it can’t correct the sins of the past. The “Ultimate” Caligula becomes a bit of a snore.
Set in Rome circa 37 AD, Emperor Tiberius Caesar (Peter O’Toole) dies. His adopted son Gaius Augustus Germanicus (Malcolm McDowell) – commonly known as “Caligula” – ascends to the throne.
Paranoid and often delusional, Caligula reigns over a decadent empire. This tendency toward perversion and lunacy creates problems for the Roman Empire.
Caligula became infamous virtually as soon as it hits screens. A mix of controversies accompanied it, and its many explicit sex scenes stuck it with an “X” rating in the US.
The biggest issue stemmed from the movie’s basic messiness and lack of coherence. That said, I couldn’t call the film boring.
Well, not in its original incarnation, the one that so captivated my friends and me in college. As noted, this Blu-ray comes with a “new” version of Caligula entitled “The Ultimate Cut”.
Essentially, this one pares down the graphic content and attempts to give us a better structured and less smutty presentation. Don’t take that to mean “Ultimate” totally removes the sex and violence, though.
No, “Ultimate” still provides a fair amount of those components. However, it tones them down considerably.
For instance, take the infamous scene in which Tiberius forces a soldier to drink wine incessantly without the ability to relieve himself because minions tie off his penis. Once Tiberius decides the man had enough, he then guts and kills him.
In the more explicit version, we get a graphic sequence. In “Ultimate”, we lose most of the more disgusting footage, so though the basic elements remain, it lacks the same impact.
This becomes true across the board, as “Ultimate” attempts to rehabilitate Caligula as a straight dramatic effort. It succeeds from the POV that it no longer seems like a campy and over the top romp.
However, “Ultimate” substitutes the gleeful insanity of the 1980 cut with a lot of turgid and frankly dull material. Again, “Ultimate” doesn’t eliminate all the graphic content, but it minimizes these elements to emphasize a more traditional vibe.
Perhaps if the source material worked better, these attempts to cobble together a more credible Caligula would work. However, the footage just seems flat and without real heft.
This means that the “Ultimate” Caligula comes with an inherent lack of substance. Often fans of troubled productions believe that those flicks can be reworked to depict the filmmakers’ original intentions and thus “fixed”.
Unquestionably Caligula went through a lot of conflict during the shoot, as producer Bob Guccione, director Tinto Brass and screenwriter Gore Vidal all wanted something different from it. As depicted in the 1980 version, Guccione essentially “won” – what with the hardcore porn it included – but as noted, the final product became a goofy and incoherent mess.
To be sure, “Ultimate” makes a lot more sense than did the 1980 edition. It definitely offers a more complete rendition of the story as intended.
But it never turns into a more interesting take on the property. This feels like a silk purse/sow’s ear situation, as the source simply came with so many problems that nothing could truly redeem it.
I respect and admire all the work that went into this “Ultimate” cut of Caligula. Clearly a labor of love, all involved wanted to create a version of the film that delivered what Caligula could have been without all the problems during the production.
Unfortunately, those issues mean that the source simply can’t be rehabilitated to make an actual good version of Caligula. Interesting as an experiment, the “Ultimate” cut just never becomes an intriguing or compelling tale.