They screwed up the whole series with this installment

Rating: 2/10 (2 March 2000)

I believe that this movie is bordering on disgraceful. Sometimes when you make a movie that is meant to be tragic, metaphorical, profound and/or moving, it only makes it worse when the movie is a failure. To be honest, while I quite like the first two movies in the series I think they're somewhat overrated. Trying to glorify the mob is an immoral and futile cause. The good thing about the first two movies is that they manage to encompass all of the sins humans are commonly affiliated with- anger, pride,greed etc, and put them in an emphatically harsh context. Namely, that of a life and death situation. Sins that are normally unimportant domestically, ironically become a major problem because of domesticity - "the family." This particular installment attempts to recreate this sentiment, but gets it all wrong. I actually laughed at the ending. It was a poor attempt at trying to move the audience and blatantly duplicates the endings of the last two movies for the sake of it(i.e. all the enemies being wiped out). The difference being, this time perhaps karma has brought about the emotional downfall of Michael, then, it is exemplified in a physical context-that of the accidental assassination of his daughter. My biggest gripe outside of the ending is quite simply the build up. It is somewhat confused and misdirected yet almost lacking in complexity. You feel nothing at all by the time we reach the climax which is then a rampant anti climax in itself. I can't believe they focused also, on an incestuous relationship as the chief romance. There is something very unnatural about the whole film. All due respect should go to the actors who give a reasonable performance despite the poor script. I think though, that it was a matter of misinterpretation of how good the script really was for actors such as Pacino and Keaton which is why they were forced to be associated with this movie. As well as this the dialogue is very ordinary. Coppola has misfired here, but of course we can't forget some of his other achievements and as such can afford to forgive.