Critics reviews

[Negovan] hews as close as possible to Vidal’s original story. In doing so, the debauchery, majesty, and brutality are finally revealed in all their unhinged glory... By restoring Vidal’s narrative, [Brass's and Guccione's] audacious work is made greater. Earlier versions put spectacle first: Here, spectacle serves story.

“Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” [is] one of the oddest reclamation projects in cinema history... The result is different from what came before and is, in many instances, a marked improvement. This time around, viewers can have a better appreciation for the often-stunning costumes and production design contributions from the legendary Danilo Donati... [while] McDowell’s performance displays more of an actual arc, making his characterization far more interesting than the flat-out loon seen the first time around.

While Caligula may not be a lost masterpiece, I can confidently assert that this new version resurrects and revalorizes what might have been, had the stars been aligned differently. After 45 years, this controversial juggernaut of a film has finally arrived, in all its ambitious, hot, messy, gratuitous splendor.

“Caligula: The Ultimate Cut” attempts to answer the question of whether or not there was ever a great movie buried in the raw footage. The answer turns out to be…well, sort of... [The film] is still no masterpiece, but it is essential viewing.

A general upside [about the film's new cut] is more screen time for the bemused-looking Mirren as Caligula’s wife, Caesonia, even if the character remains underwritten. A major downside is that Bruno Nicolai’s original music and the signature classical cues by Prokofiev and Khachaturian have been replaced by a new score by Troy Sterling Nies that is anodyne at best.

Although this version is still violent and sexually explicit, it’s been reworked to show that, handled right, [Caligula] had all the makings of a masterpiece... There’s no masterpiece, here. The only good news (kind of) is that you’ve never seen anything so full-on demented in all your life. It’s worth seeing just for that.

This spruced up version certainly hangs together as a kind of sub-late-Fellini dark erotic reverie, and I admit it has ambition and reach... This Caligula was very much as eroticism was imagined at the time... It all makes for something startling, amusing and bizarre.

Whatever else it is, the film is sumptuously art-directed and shot... This new Caligula is a gaudy fantastical charade. Even if it’s more like an 18-rated circus than a movie, it’s quite enough to be going on with. 

The consequence of all this refinement is a film whose wayward moments seem all the more marvellous. Rather than an exotic, sprawling mess, [Caligula] is a work whose various wonders serve a purpose, even when that purpose is only to dazzle. It strives to fill the void left by the gods, and where it falls short, it is only more glorious as a result.

More a heroic act of preservation than artistic vindication, “The Ultimate Cut” highlights what does work practically in the film (the production design and performances), as well as the foundational issues that were likely irreparable from its conception... Negovan’s efforts remain intriguing as a thought experiment and cinematic curio.