very good but not the best movie of all time

Rating: 8/10 (11 June 2002)

I finally got around to seeing this movie. I highly recommend it for reasons I'm sure the many other reviewers have already voiced. In particular, Marlon Brando gives one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen.
On the other hand, it didn't quite live up to the billing as best picture of all time and was not flawless as many claim it to be... I had two major problems with the Godfather. First, even thought the movie is three hours long I felt that the character of Michael was still underdeveloped. Michael's "transformation" is the focal point of the movie, yet we see almost nothing of him in the first third of the movie and we can't really tell how much of an internal change he makes. Leaving a little mystery and leaving things up to interpretation is fine but I thought this was a bit extreme.
Second, the female characters were one-dimensional, naive and passive to the point of incredulity. Take for example the scene between Michael and Kay after Michael returns from his absence -- oh come on!
Despite these qualms, it was still very enjoyable and something that everyone should probably watch at least once. My rating: 8.5 out of 10