The word "bomb" is an understatement.

Rating: Null/10 (26 January 1999)

This was one of the biggest disappointments ever to hit the silver screen, and please don't blame Sofia - she was the least of its troubles. It was almost like the creators intentionally set out to make this movie bad, for a number of reasons:
1) No plot: What exactly was this film about? Something to do with the Vatican banking scandal, I think. (Yawn) Wake me when it's over.
2) Lack of continuity with the first two films: Parts I and II told interesting and believable stories. I have no idea what this film was trying to say. Even though you had all the familiar faces, the story didn't really fit with the last images we saw of Michael sitting on the shores of Lake Tahoe in the 1974 film. There were a few places in which this film looked like it was trying to make a weak attempt at borrowing from Goodfellas - which came out the same year. Why? Goodfellas was a completely different kind of film. There was no need to steal from it (and no pun intended).
3) Spending all that money to get back Diane Keaton: Again, why? Her character was basically written out in Part II. A rekindling of their romance, however mild, was not only a distraction but also not credible.
4) Not spending the money to get back Robert Duvall: On the other hand, the Tom Hagen character was still important to the saga, and could have been used in interesting ways (e.g., suppose Tom had betrayed Michael as well, only in a more complex manner?). Duvall should have been in this film. Instead, they used...
5) George Hamilton: They had to be kidding on this one.
6) Changes to the Talia Shire character: Connie as a Sicilian Ma Barker was an even bigger joke. By the way, if she was so sinister, wouldn't she have had enough brains to figure out what really happened to Fredo?
7) Underdeveloped Andy Garcia, Joe Mantegna, Eli Wallach, and John Savage characters: Especially Savage as Tom Hagen's son, whose brief appearances were a total mystery (was his character originally conceived as having a more critical role in the story?). All around, there was just too much wasted talent in this film.
8) Lack of original music - It borrowed too much from the first two films. The stroll down "Michael's Memory Lane" while the son performed a rendition of "Speak Softly, Love" almost made me want to stroll out of the theater. The use of the Intermezzo during the credits was stolen (pun intended this time) from Raging Bull, which further suggests that Coppola had Scorsese on his mind.
9) The End: The creators should have had the "guts" to kill off Michael by means of a climactic ambush, not an anticlimactic stroke or heart attack (that last scene reminded me of Artie Johnson's routine in Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In). The death of the daughter meant nothing to the audience.
10) Laying the seeds for Godfather IV - Lord help us; I think I would be more intrigued by Rocky XVIII.
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When they were making this film, I remember reading somewhere that its plot was supposed to be a modern-day, organized crime version of the Cataline Conspiracy. That, intertwined perhaps with the story of the fall of a real-life mobster for Pacino's character, would have made for a fascinating film, even better than the first two. Instead, we were left with a movie so bad, it even tarnishes the reputation of the first two films to some degree. Alas, whatever Coppolla had back in the 70s, he no longer had it when he made this film.