Not as bad as everyone says  but suffers from the pressure of the first two

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2002)

Michael Corleone has sold his illegal business in an attempt to win back his family. However he must still contend with up and coming mobsters such as Vincent, who wants to work for him and Joey Zasa, who wants to fully take over the Corleone family's territory. When the Corleone family begin to deal with the Vatican and plan to buy out their share of an multinational corporation he finds that the Vatican is just as corrupt as his illegal operations were. Despite his best efforts he finds himself sucked back into the world he has tried to leave behind.
Easily one of the most hated films ever made  or at least you'd think it was by the critical mauling it got for a raft of reasons. However watching it now it isn't that bad and really it only suffers from comparison with the two films before it. But lets be fair, Coppola has made 3 or 4 of the best films ever made  did we really expect another one from him?
The film has a reasonable plot and brings the trilogy to a logical end. The plot however does have it's weaknesses  for example it starts well with Michael's attempt to `get out' being hampered by other families on their way up. But when it starts to get involved with money laundering through the Vatican and the corruption therein, it starts to lose it's way and it's focus on Michael.
The main weakness comes in the characters. Would Michael really go straight just to get his family back  and how come he managed to do it so easily up till the time of the film? Worse still is Connie who seems to have become some sort of Mafia widow when that was not part of her character in the previous films  would she really have got that twisted or influential? Little problems like these just bugged me and they also fed into the performances.
For such a great cast the acting was very average. Pacino is good but I sensed he didn't see Michael turning out this way and he didn't convince occasionally. Keaton has little to do and again I felt that her approach to Michael was too forgiving, although maybe I'm not allowing for time. As I Siad before Shire was doing some sort of `Bride of Frankenstein' act as Connie and I didn't buy it for a moment. Garcia was OK and faces like Wallach, Hamilton and the like helped. The two worst performances were sadly two of the main ones. First Joe Mantegna..now it wasn't that it was bad  it was more that I've seen him do so much better. Here all I could think of when I watched him was how his character and his acting was very like his Simpsons' character of ` Fat Tony'. Bare in mind Fat Tony is meant to be a spoof of the Mafioso characters and you'll see why I didn't like it.
The worse performance was Sofia Coppola. Now she was vilified at the time for her role  a bit unfairly and cruelly but she was still bad. She has this strange scowl on her face for most of the film and she acts like a spoil little girl. She also has no realism in her voice and speaks in the same constant tone  that Vincent would fall for her was just a leap of faith too far to accept. The cast does have others who are unused or underused  Fonda being the best example. Why did she bother with that role!?
Overall, this is miles behind the other two Godfathers and it has plenty of weaknesses. However at it's heart it's a good try as the concluding part and the story is watchable. It's not bad, it just is average and it feels like the director and large sections of the cast felt they just had to turn up to make a third classic film.