Genre:
Historical Film
Release Date: 10/26/2004
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 178 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: GT Media
This ambitious, four-hour cable miniseries stars
Jeremy Sisto (taking time off from his regular series
Six Feet Under) as Roman general-turned-emperor
Julius Caesar. Expensively filmed in Malta and Bulgaria, the production vividly traces
Caesar's rise to prominence as a brilliant military tactician (with remarkably accurate battle scenes); his complex relationships with his mentor
General Pompey (
Chris Noth) and his second wife
Calpurnia (
Valeria Golino); his ideological tiltings with
Senator Cato (
Christopher Walken), who advocates democracy over
Caesar's dictatorial ambitions; and his bloody (but inevitable) murder at the hands of former friends and allies. Taking some dramatic license with the facts, the film is basically sympathetic to its subject, although
Caesar is depicted as a flawed man, both physically and morally. Giving
Caesar points for being fundamentally honorable, in full possession of his faculties, and possessing the "common touch" with the Roman citizenry, the teleplay does not shrink away from the man's violent epileptic seizures, his megalomania, his casually calculated cruelties, and his bigamous relationship with Egyptian queen
Cleopatra (
Samuela Sardo). Interestingly enough, however, the miniseries downplays his notorious bisexuality ("Every man's woman and every woman's man"). In his final performance,
Richard Harris appears as
Caesar's wily
bête noire, Roman dictator
Sulla.
Caesar was first telecast in the U.S. on June 29-30, 2003, by the
TNT cable network.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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