Spielberg meets Ed Wood - No Plot, Monumental Failure

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2004)

Why Francis Ford Coppolla received such accolade for this film is beyond me. I suppose he must've hired everyone in Hollywood to do this picture. Do you think everyone had a piece? Piece of what you may ask. A piece of a failure of monumental proportions. This movie reminded me of the Titanic - the boat, not the movie.
Why is this movie a failure? This film suffers from terrible dramatic fundamentals. It is a classic example of the movie drives the plot which is not the way it works. Rather, good drama has as its one trademark, the plot drives the movie. Any first year director in any dramatic medium should know this. You do the scenes so that the plot is revealed, not rewritten. The reader is kept on edge, waiting to see what happens next.
And that is the key. The following notes on the characters are inconsequential. This movie suffers most from appalling writing that undermines everything. Nice dialogue does nothing if the storyline makes no sense. Who cares? In this film, the reader is constantly wondering, 'what just happened there.' Did I miss something? What are they talking about? Do I need to remember all these characters? No, you don't, Francis just wanted to get his cousin in the picture, so he's wasting your time to do it.
That is why the first film, despite its relatively meager budget was a success. Coppola was forced to quell his massive ego and improvise to make it work. He was sloppy and sometimes almost juvenile, but it didn't matter. The plot was so good, all he really had to do is show up. And he almost blew that. Here you see the true Coppola at his ultimate worse. Now you know why the producers of the first film were so worried.
All I could think about during the entire film was, 'Where is Brando?'
Bobby Deniro and the Italian language were annoying. Deniro was annoying, in general. All I could think about was, "okay, so deniro wants to join the gang...of misfits."
Pacino was lost. I started muting his outbursts because they were so predictable. The key to a good outburst is it has to be explosive meaning unpredictable. In Al's case it was just load and annoying. I yawned. The rest of the film focused on Pacino's facial movements from the restaurant scene in the first film. It was like "Okay Al, remember that restaurant scene? Let's have you do those facial expressions again, for three whole hours. Do you think we'll get tired of it?"
Diane Keaton shouldn't have even been there. The stupid and pitiful moral struggles of family life made me wonder if Coppolla didn't spend his entire childhood watching the Brady bunch. What a load!!!!!! I can't believe he even attempted to address such things. Does he think I'm some kind of idiot? Obviously. "But Daddy doesn't spend enough time with me." "Don't worry boy, he's in Cuba. I'll buy you a red toy car. let's go fishing." I vomit.
The first half introduced so many utterly inconsequential characters, I couldn't help but wonder if they were all Coppolla's cousins. I've never seen so many gala affairs and parties in one film. I thought I was reading a travel brochure.
Coppolla had so overextended himself that at some point he was probably no longer even part of the film. I don't care how many hours he worked. All he did was serve the interests of his own ego. The artist was left helpless in a pile of rubble. It was a managerial catastrophe.
This movie was nothing more than a hackneyed soap opera overblown on a proportion that boggles the mind. Great sets, great music, great cameras, do nothing whatsoever if there is no storyline and the characters are uninteresting. ugh. I couldn't help but think that anyone who actually was a mobster would look at this and say, 'what a load of crap.'
Fortunately, you don't have to be a mobster to understand that you are being sold a bill of goods. All you have to do is read this. Oh, and for those who actually liked this film...I'll bet you liked Rocky II.
Don't waste your time.