"The Godfather Part II" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Lord Dalek]

The Drama of Absolute Power, and The Men who Violate It!



"If anything in this life is certain - if history has taught us anything - it's that you can kill anybody. " - Michael Corleone

Release Date: 12/20/1974
Studio: Paramount, American Zoetrope
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert DeNiro, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Lee Strasberg

Plot Summary: The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up in Sicily and in 1910s New York; and follows Michael Corleone in the 1950s as he attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas.

COMMENTS?

[Avaitor]

Even if you prefer Part I, you have to admit that this is easily one of the very best sequels ever made, if not the very best.

[Foggle]

I used to prefer Part 1, but I think I like Part 2 more now. (Both are brilliant.) I'd love to see that chronological order edited-together version of all three movies some day, even if Part 3 is pretty weak comparatively.

[Lord Dalek]

Its important to note that Coppola himself doesn't consider The Godfather to be a trilogy and that The Godfather Part III was never even meant to be titled as such (it was originally going to be "The Death of Michael Corleone" and serve as an epilogue).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I prefer the novel to both films, but I do know that Mario Puzo himself hand a hand in the screenplays for Parts I and II and worked very close with Coppola. Most people prefer Part II, and while I respect that film I honestly felt that Part I was just a stronger story and had flat-out more interesting characters. I found Michael to be more interesting when he started out as a straight man against his family's "line of business" but slowly developed into the perfect successor to his father as the head of the Corleone family as time progressed. Sonny was a fucking awesome character. Although you got to know more about his good (and bad) qualities in the book, I felt that his character generally translated very well into film, and I felt that his death scene (is it really even considered a spoiler by this point in time?) has to be one of the most memorable moments that I have personally seen in all of cinema. As for Vito, while its undeniable that Marlon Brando's performance as him has become a huge subject of parody over the years, after seeing the performance myself I must admit there is a power to it that I just don't think could have been matched by any other actor. I really buy that this guy could garner so much respect yet so much fear among both those working under him as well as those separate families.

Obviously enough The Godfather II was a completely different film, and that's definitely for the better, but honestly it just never felt as strong or as interesting as the first film did to me. Well, that's not entirely true. I found the flash-backs of Vito in his early days in America to be superbly executed and by far the most interesting parts of the film. As for Michael's story-line and his interactions, they are well done in terms of acting, directing, and overall execution, but I just can't help but feel that the film loses me at times from nothing other than sheer boredom, which wasn't a problem with the first film for me. I mean, there are just times where the film is doing absolutely nothing to keep me engaged or to make me care about any of the characters, even ones well-established from the first film, like Tom Hagen. Overall, though, it is a great film and I respect it a lot, but I do also find it to be rather overrated if I were to be completely honest.

As for The Godfather part III, I only saw it once a long time ago, and honestly....I liked it. Its not nearly as strong of a film as the first 2 and from what I know about it, there was a lot of issues with the actors that caused various re-writes and the whole script ended up changing drastically at least a few times, which kind of leads to some awkward story-telling, but being viewed as an epilogue to the first 2 films its rather interesting, IMO. I also give it a lot of props for making a lot of call-backs to the book that the first 2 films themselves largely ignored.