Caligula: The Ultimate Cut

I have been fascinated by Caligula for the longest time. Much of it is the legendarily troubled production of the movie itself. The original cut was the kind of mess even FEMA won't touch, with arguments between the director (Tinto Brass), the screenwriter (Gore Vidal), and producer/financier Bob Guccione resulting in a Frankenstein's monster of a theatrical cut that perverted the original screenplay, didn't capture the best performances, caused numerous crew members to have their names removed, and had hardcore pornography inserted into the edit that the cast didn't find out about until the world premiere. I never had any interest in actually suffering through it's two and a half hour run time, but the movie itself was an intriguing subject all on its own. So when a release using 70% alternate takes that adheres to Vidal's script and drops the porn was released, my intrigue in the subject became desire to see this new version and find out if, when restored to the original intended vision, that it could finally be a worthy movie. And the answer is ... no, not really. I don't know how the original cut plays, so you won't find a comparison here. I'm just judging what I saw, and what I saw was a chintzy, bloated, wannabe epic that was never as sexy or interesting as its sleazebag producer wanted it to be, not as deep and profound as its writer thinks it is, and definitely not the examination of a "born monster" as its director wanted. It's not horrible and unwatchable, but what positive traits it has -- mostly the acting, really -- don't outweigh the negatives. The script is the biggest problem here. At three whole hours, Caligula the movie is as excessive and indulgent as Caligula the man was. Every frame is a parade of hedonism. I'll give it credit that it doesn't glorify the perverted (and eventually psychotic) indulgences of the emperor; it merely presents them. The problem comes not in showing decadence but in the volume thereof. If there is a consecutive five minute span in this movie without some form of nudity or sexual activity, I'd be stunned. I'll again give it credit for being equal opportunity; men and women alike are exposed, head to toe and everything in between, so if you're just looking for some eye candy, all genders and sexual orientations have some scenery to look at here. But the amount of it is so overwhelming and constant, it loses all value. Granted, very little of it is arousing to begin with. Yes, there are beautiful people here with gorgeous bodies, but when you've literally seen 50 naked bodies and you're only at the half hour mark, you're not going to be repulsed by the depravity; you're going to become numb to it. This becomes a bigger problem once Caligula becomes emperor. Vidal wanted to portray a good man who goes bad when given absolute power; Brass wanted to portray a man who was born a monster. The movie opens with Caligula in bed with his sister, so either Vidal is full of it, or he doesn't know what he wrote. There is no arc for Caligula here. He is a selfish, manipulative, scheming turd of a human being before becoming emperor. Gaining the throne only changes him insofar as to allow him full indulgence of anything he wants, as opposed to sneaking around. His ascension and rule does not portray a man succumbing to the intoxication of ultimate power; it's basically "what if Augustus Gloop didn't fall in the chocolate river and just ate his way through that first room?". It's a glutten being shown for the first time an all-you-can-have buffet of their fondest desire. And there are THREE HOURS OF IT, so the movie has to find new levels of depravity in a desperate attempt to outrun the speeding train. It becomes too much well before the halfway mark, and never gets any better, so you're stuck watching the worst people on Earth find ways to outdo themselves. If Caligula started off well-meaning and noble, but got bored and slid into wretchedness, okay. If the death of his sister provoked change of any kind, or at least a momentary pause, fine. But nothing changes, ever, right up until the end. Less important but still problematic are the sets. I mentioned this looked cheap, and the sets are the biggest evidence of it. Everything looks like cardboard and styrofoam, like they filmed on an old Roger Corman fantasy movie set. Really takes you out of the movie when the sets look like the result of the 10th grade drama club at your local high school. I can't say I had high hopes for this. I expected it to perhaps redeem the performances, and to that effect, yes, it managed that. Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, and Teresa Ann Savoy are magnificent. They aren't given much in the way of range, but they commit to the roles as written one hundred and ten percent. And, for what it matters, they do capture the hedonism and decadence of Caligula and the times. It's just that the movie itself is dull and monotonous, pounding you over the head with the sickest ideas and bottomless carnal desires of a mercurial madman, and it gets old well before the movie ends.