Superior to the original.

Rating: 9/10 (29 May 2006)

The Godfather Part II is a complicated film. In its 3 hour run time it manages to pull off telling two stories. One that takes place in the 1950s, and one that takes place in the 1920s. In the 1920s we see Vito Corleone arriving in New York City and making a name for himself among the wealthy gangsters, starting a family, and eventually becoming Don of the Corleone crime family. The exact parallel is the 1950s story, where we see Vito's son Michael in his new role as Don of the Corleone family as he starts his own family. The Godfather Part II is a superior film to the original because it tells a much more interesting story, and it does a better job at portraying what an organized crime family is really like.
All of the great actors from the original are back including James Caan in a flashback sequence. Al Pacino comes across as a great bad guy, and he seems to be ten times more cold hearted than his father ever was. He's a changed man. He started off a legitimate man who wanted nothing to do with his family's business, but now he's more into it than ever before. This movie features Al Pacino's second best performance in a film (second to Dog Day Afternoon), and it shows what kind of actor he truly is. This is the film that made Robert De Niro a star, and rightly so. Robert De Niro portrays young Vito Corleone on his rise to power in New York. This is Robert De Niro's first big role and he plays it like he's been doing it for years. The best thing about it is that just about every line of his dialogue is in Italian, and yet you still enjoy his performance.
The Godfather Part II contains the most realistic view of the mafia ever portrayed in film. In fact it's so realistic that the central characters don't even refer to it as the mafia. The Godfather Part II tells a more interesting story than the original, and it's more fun to sit through. The Godfather Part II is a great film that is both dramatic and epic as well as entertaining. Great movie.
9/10