Rate Caligula (1979)

6/10

2/10 McDowell was great but the movie.....

5/10

There have been different versions of this film in circulation. I don't know if everyone here is rating the same film, in terms of different edits. According to IMDb, the original was 115 minutes long, with an R-rated cut that was 102 min long. I just watched the 156 min version.


Actually, McDowell was one of the main problems with it. He was terribly miscast imo. And for a 2 1/2-hour film in which the main character is on screen for almost every second, if you don't get that part right, almost nothing else matters.


Caligula sets out to be the kind of film you wished the other epic films set in ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece would be, showing the sex that the other films only suggested by innuendo, and keeping all the violence but skipping the sword fights. It's got epic sets (the decapitation engine is a marvel to behold!), fancy costumes (even if not super authentic), some great actors (Mirren, Gielgud, and I think Peter O'Toole was perfect as Tiberius) despite the misstep with McDowell, and it does tell what could be an interesting story.

But, at least in the edit I watched, it's too long. Sometimes less is more, and that is definitely the case with this film. I might have a different view with one of the other edits.

Second, while a lot of the other films set in ancient Rome were well lit, this film is mostly staged in dimly lit studios, and the print I saw was dark and somewhat grainy. For a film that is mostly about a lurid bordello ambience, there is a role for dark and grainy, but in Caligula it starts to wear on you after a time and becomes monotonous.

I don't think it's nearly as bad as most of the professional critics have judged it to be. I think there's a certain amount of prudery that flavored their assessments. I'm glad to have seen it, but it could have been much, much better.

6.0-6.5/10

3/10