Not as good as the first two parts, but a good enough film

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2004)

While I loved the first, thought the second was equally as good, though a bit redundant and unnecessary(apart from Vito's back-story, and possibly the further development of Kay and Michael's relationship), this one just didn't reach the high level of the first two. It obviously tries, but I don't really think there was that much left to tell of the Corleone family. The cast members who were in the previous two films(that don't appear in this one) are sorely missed; the first had Marlon Brando himself, the second had Robert De Niro... what does this one have going for it, really? Only a few new characters, none of them particularly memorable, and only a few of them well-acted. I'll say it right now; I do not consider Sofia Coppola an actress. I've heard she did a great job directing Lost in Translation(which I haven't seen yet, but will see as soon as possible), but she can't act. Luckily, there aren't that many scenes that require her to, but still, the ones that do require her to put some emotion into it she totally screws up with her lack of acting capability. The few actors who reprise their old roles give as great performances as they did in the first two, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire and Richard Bright; all great. I liked the addition of Andy Garcia, he did a great job as well. So did Bridget Fonda, but she didn't have very much screen time to prove her talent. The script is decent enough, I just found myself questioning it a little too much; it seemed like they were running out of ideas for starting mob wars, and just figured they'd put a lot of characters in the film, have them interact, and finally kill them off. I'm not saying it's downright bad, the script(or the film, for that matter), I'm just saying it's not at all as good as the scripts of the first two parts. The plot is decent, but it halted too much, especially the last half hour; I had almost entirely lost interest by then, and the climax was just slightly anti-climactic, at best. The actual end was good, but the entire climax sequence was far too long and confusing to be genuinely exciting or thrilling. The acting was mostly good, with the four leads being great(Pacino, Keaton, Shire and Garcia). The characters were reasonably well-written. All in all, the film is worth watching, I guess, but only for those who want closure to the Godfather story. I recommend it pretty much only to the biggest fans of Godfather, as it can be easily ignored with no big loss. Also, you could watch it and just consider it a stand-alone film, with no relation to the far superior first two parts. 8/10