Good, but not as good as the first

Rating: 8/10 (7 April 2014)

A lot of people seem to consider THE GODFATHER PART II to be the best film ever made, a film that's even better than it's already excellent predecessor. Unfortunately, I have to disagree. While this movie is very good, and as well made as the original, I think the original has the edge.
The reason for that is the script, which was just better, and more involved, the first time around. Here, there are dual narratives, one of which follows the traditional sequel route of showing that happened to the Corleone family after the events of the first movie, while the second is a prequel revealing how Vito Corleone became the mafia boss he ended up as.
While I love Robert De Niro and I enjoyed the flashback scenes, I felt this whole sequence was slightly unnecessary. From the material given, the viewer can already guess how the De Niro character rose through the ranks and the events we witness feel a little bit superfluous. Sure, the pair of assassination scenes are excellent, but the rest just feels obvious and expected.
Meanwhile, the Pacino narrative also has its problems, although cast and director aren't at fault; Coppola reunites many of his principals here and to excellent effect. However, there isn't nearly as much incident in the narrative and the whole story feels a little dragged out, a little over-emphasised. In the first film, the Pacino character had three or four major plot points to deal with, whereas this time the events are limited; for example, the entire film focuses on the situation with Roth, whereas in THE GODFATHER that would have just taken up half an hour or so. Therefore the ending, when it comes, is admittedly powerful, but not as effective in comparison to the genuinely amazing things we saw in the first film. It's been done before, and apart from a little more depth and character focus, we can't take much more away from this sequel. So it's very good, but not quite up there to the level of the first.