A Sequel That was Not Needed

Rating: 6/10 (20 July 2015)

I'm not going to say it was an entire awful movie, but after the success of the first two "Godfather" franchises, there was no necessity in making a third sequel. Even director Francis Ford Coppola admitted that the sagas come from "Parts I and II" and that "The Godfather Part III" was nothing more than a glorified epilogue. The only purpose as to why he made this third installment was because his bravado was going down plus he was in a financial crunch and was lured in by Paramount to make a third movie as a key to his financial comeback. He could've resisted the temptation, but he decided to give it the old college try. I just wished that he made another flop than to make "The Godfather III". At least with the flop it would've been an honest one and less manipulative.
The flaws in this movie are by the bundles, where to begin we can say that the plot does not have the same bite that its predecessor's have in their grasp. Even though at 2 hours and 42 minutes long it feels a lot longer and some scenes tend to drag on for too long, especially the scenes that take place in Sicily. Michael and Kay's (Al Pacino and Diane Keaton) quiet time together should have been axed out entirely. This movie is not a romantic tale, so therefore Coppola unless he was trying to get more female audience members to see this film, there was no need for any kind of dragged out romantic interludes to this story.
For those who wish to use Sofia Coppola as the main poison to this this film may have crossed the line a bit here. Yes I agree she couldn't act worth a nickel, but she was only on for a very short time and her contribution to the film is quite minimal. Granted if they would've casted either Julia Roberts of Winona Ryder for the part of Mary Corleone, they could've made the character all the more compelling. But Mary is only very minor role so it really would not have made much of a difference.
Another key factor to why this film is inferior to the other two "Godfathers" is the absence of Robert Duvall's character Tom Hagen. Duvall was interested in reprising his role and demanded to Mr. Coppola an equal salary like Pacino, but he was rebuffed at his request and backed out of the project. With that in mind Coppola edited out that Hagen died and that George Hamilton's B.J. Harrison was cast as the new attorney to the Corleone's estate. The only living relative to the Hagen name was Father Andrew Hagen played by John Savage whose role was absolutely useless.
If there was any newbie that holds any kind of interest was Andy Garcia's performance as Vincent Corleone, the son of James Caan's character the late Sonny Corleone and Michael's nephew. The first of the trilogy had young Michael trying to take over the family empire after Sonny and Fredo were not eligible for such as task. Michael wanted legitimacy within his family's legacy. It would've been better if Vincent became the successor and to bring the family back to conducting illegal tactics to bring back their old ways again. The script gets within those parameters, but the distractions are way too abundant.
Another note to point out is that the change in Michael is way to obvious and at time can be unnatural. After the second film Michael was raging force to be reckoned with, but now a lot older and more gravely ill, he is now begging for forgiveness for all the things he's done. I understand that as you get older you look back and think of all the things you've done. In Michael's case, he's like he's been resurrected from the first film, feeling a bit ashamed he's from a Mafia family and wants no part of it, but in family honour, he'll attack when his family needs him when no one else will intervene. I have no problem with this change, but the process is never fully clarified due to the lacklustre script. It just gives me the impression he's scared of dying and just wants one last breath of redemption before the coffin closes.
I did like what they did with script by adding some real events that happened in the Roman Catholic Church during the late 1970's when the majority of the film takes place. Such events like the banking scandal of the Vatican and the unfortunate mysterious death of the Pope John Paul I after becoming the pope 33 days before.
It wasn't an awful movie, but with a much tighter editing job and a more revised script, then "The Godfather Part III" would have been a much better film. And sure people have panned this film horribly, it doesn't deserve that much lambasting. However, it was very poorly executed and it still stands as a very inferior film from the other two chapters.