Like watching paint dry.

Rating: 3/10 (2 September 2002)

Whoa. It took me years to watch this film because so many people told me to avoid it. I should have taken their advice.
Pacino should have been forced to watch the original Godfather films 100 times each to remind him what he was like when he was a real actor. The original Michael Corleone was scary because he was so controlled and introverted. His rage boiled inside. In Part III, Michael is a mugging scenary chewer who wears his emotions on his sleeves and screams at the drop of a hat.
And the Francis Ford Coppola directing Part III isn't the visionary of the 70's, but instead the bored hack of the 80's and 90's. The script is a lazy B-movie script with large chunks of unnecessary expository dialogue. The actors seem to be left to their own devices, especially Sofia who seems to be either reading off cue cards or merely reciting her lines. She's so bad. I honestly think her performance her might be the worst acting I've ever seen, and I'm including school plays and community theater I've seen over the years. Diane Keaton looks like she just dropped in from her real daughter's PTA meeting (which isn't so terrible considering the role she has in the film) and Talia Shire shows the rust of a woman who really hasn't acted much outside her thankless turns in the later Rocky flicks.
This film could have used a fresh idea or two, another couple of passes at the screenplay and whole lot less of the Coppola family. (Hell, even Nicholas Coppola er Cage got a friggen Exec Producer credit - what's up with that?)