Comparison Between Father and Son

Rating: 6/10 (3 March 2012)

Well, it seems that I agree partially with Ebert on this film, except that he rated it higher than I did. The reason that I rated it lower is because there seems to be little to tie the entire film together. The character development and interaction is brilliant, but the plot itself seems to be quite loose and very thin in places. Also the movie seems to follow very closely to the style of the first film, with an almost sudden ending, where everybody that appears to be an antagonist is simply killed, or put out of the picture.
What this movie does well though is to offer a comparison between Don Vito Corleone and his son Michael Corleone. Here we see how Vito's family was killed by a powerful mafia Don in Sicily, and then flees to America to build his empire. We then jump to the present (in the film, which is 1959) to see the crowning glory of what his family became. The difference is that Michael Corleone is a cold and heartless man who slowly pushes everybody close to him away, while Vito Corleone, even though he can be a brutal murderer at times, is an honourable man who is there to help the poor and the weak. We see this when he bullies the landlord who bullies a poor widow tenant.
I guess the thing that strikes us most in this movie is how Michael and Vito Corleone change. Vito goes from being a poor orphan boy with small pox to a powerful Mafia Don, while Michael goes from being a rich family man to a cold and powerful man with no friends. In the final scenes he falls to the lowest and kills his brother.
I have never been all that great about sequels, and I feel that this movie is really no different.