Lightning hardly strikes thrice.

Rating: 7/10 (7 December 2009)

To be frank and obvious, The Godfather Part III fails on many levels so that it cannot hold a candle to the first two. And should we really have expected it to be as good as Part I and II? The reason it was even made was because Coppola was strapped for money and felt he could give closure to this epic saga. More on that later, but first to focus on what went wrong in this continuation of the Corleone crime family.
In this third story, Michael has aged considerably over the years and is now starting to decline not only in health but in his mindset of how to run the family. Mob activities are becoming more and more violent, something he is not necessarily ready for. He becomes involved with Vincent (Andy Garcia) who is the illegitimate son of Michael's brother Sonny from the first film. He has inherited his father's temper and ambition and hopes to help the Corleone family take on Joey Zusa (Joe Mantegna), a mob boss now running their New York business. Michael also gets involved in the Vatican and their running if large sums of money. This plot thread I thought was fairly ridiculous and uninteresting. Of course, the best things of the story are the family arcs and the relationships between these people.
For the positive, the acting is good but not on par with what it was before. Al Pacino and Diane Keaton are both wonderful as Michael and Kay, two people with a lot of history but much to connect with each other. I do wish we could have seen more of the history of them and Michael explaining his actions in Sicily from the first film. Garcia is quite strong as is Talia Shire and Eli Wallach but Sofia Coppola brings everything to a halt with her very wooden and stiff performance of Mary, Michael's daughter. She speaks in one tone, has little chemistry with Garcia and has a weird contortion with her mouth that is distracting. Is it the worst thing of this movie? No, that would be the screenplay by Coppola and Mario Puzo, who seem to go out of their way to avoid doing what they did in the first two films. Those focused much on the family and the internal conflicts within. This part has a global span, going from Rome to New York to Sicily; it all seems too much for one movie.
The burning question is: was this a necessary production? I think it was, for now we know there never will nor can there ever be a fourth film as well as the closure we do receive on these people. The best part of the film is the family itself and we continue to see development in many of the characters, especially Michael and his sister Connie. For me, Connie's arc was the best of this film as we watch this beautiful woman, who got married in the first film, seem to lose her way. She is conflicted with the fact that she loves her family but is appalled by the violence associated with them. What happens to her in this movie is shocking but also understandable as it was with Michael's transformation. That, of course, is the main theme of this saga. Pacino seems to ham it up a little here but is still very effective in his role as a man filled with demons of his past and trying to do anything he can to exorcise them.
Why does this fail? Probably because we expected too much of Coppola. He hardly expected the first film to be so widely revered as it is, let alone the second film. Could he have known people wanted that same quality for this one. I am glad I saw it for now the story is complete to one of the greatest cinematic achievements.