On a rather heavy hangover day, I decided to watch the Godfather trilogy again, back to back. Other than re-deciding that the first is indeed the better film, which I had previously decided was II, the other realisation I came to is how badly the third stacks up compared to the others, especially if you watch them back to back. Obviously everyone knows this, but I mean really badly. Not just a bit worse...It comes very close to ruining the character of Michael Corleone.
I'd advise anyone thinking of watching it to not watch it straight after the others, or at any time remotely near them, or preferably, at any time...cos it'll only annoy you.
10 things that are wrong with the Godfather part III
1. Al Pacino isn't playing Michael Corleone - Part of the problem in returning to the story 15 + years on is that in the intervening years Al Pacino has achieved the uniquely impressive feat of turning into a completely different person. The fresh faced, handsome, quietly intense, high pitched softly spoken Pacino of the Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon is all but a half remembered thought in a hazy drunken dream, replaced by the sunken eyed, erratic haired, hunched over, gravelly voiced, quirky shouty loon of the Devils Advocate and everything since. He even seems to be a different ethnicity now too somehow. Added to this is the unshakable fact that he's not playing the right character in this film. Michael as we left him in Part II is pure evil. Calculated, almost callously unemotive and beyong reproach. Even before his transformation there's a clear level of seriousness and intensity there. Here he's all wry jokes and sly winks and playful expressions with a bit of Tony Montana thrown in here and there when he gets a bit upset. It's basically Pacino playing someone else he might have played in another film once. Or himself. But not Michael Corleone. It's hard to care for the plight of your main character when he's not playing the same character.
2. Talia Shire isn't playing Connie Corleone - Connie from the first two films, and the book, is a demure, timid, fairly shy put upon battered wife and eventual damaged drunk and then eventual stay at home sister. She was never remotely interested in the "family business" other than hating it and was never allowed near it anyway. Here however, she's in full on drag-queen pantomime witch mode, straight out of bad episode of Desperte Housewives meets the Witches of Eastwick, serving as a sort of defacto underboss and both ordering and carrying out hits. Its bat shit OTT character metamorphosis. It's almost as if Talia Coppola (for 'tis her name) told her brother she'd "love to be in the new one again, but wouldn't it be cool if I was like, you know, a gangster too, or something? And I could look evil and wear black and squint a lot".. Did anyone involved in this film actually watch the first two?
3. Sofia Coppola is playing a character in this film. - There isn't one single reason why the Godfather III fails spectacularly in holding a candle to it's earlier instalments, but if you could pin down one as the most obvious example to demonstrate your point to someone, it'd be this. Her acting is atrocious in this film. And I don't just mean atrocious, I mean atrocious, though I'm aware you're unable to hear the emphasis I gave that when I though it. She's 'The Room' atrocious. She's out acted by Andy Garcia's chest hair. She out woods the chair Pacino dies on. She's fecking atrocious in this film.
4. The stuff that actually happens - Is all very stupid. There are about 5 plots in this film and none of them are very captivating. Some of them just stop after 20 or so minutes and are never addressed again. Some of them start about half way through. Bridget Fonda was in it at one point, and then wasn't. It didn't make much difference The fact that Garcia starts the film as a rent a thug bastard cousin no one has seen in ages or really gives a shit about and who has to gate crash a party just to get near the family, but ends it by being made Don and heir and given control of everything in what seems like a couple of months sums up how retarded it is basically. They wanted to make a 4th out of his reign as Godfather. Shame we missed out on that masterpiece ey?
5. George Hamilton is in this film, and he's called BJ - Seriously man, this is The Godfather, what are you doing? "Yeah Duvall won't do it, who shall we get?....George Hamilton? Yeah that sounds about right. Lets call him BJ Harrison."..Have a word with yourself Francis.
6. Incest - One thing I didn't think was obviously missing from the first two, was Incest. Some one clearly disagreed though, so here we have a bizarre incest subplot about how first cousins Sofa Coppola and Andy Chestwig are madly in love, though if you were going solely on Coppola's acting, you could be confused into thinking she was just mildly impressed with the furniture. Everyone keeps referring to this as "dangerous" in a sinister but unexplained way, but doesn't treat it with any importance, probably because it's just as tediously boring a romance for them as it is everyone else watching.
7. Someone orders a Helicopter to assassinate a room. - Obviously someone saw Die Hard before writing this and decided it needed a really cool action scene with a Helicopter. Like Godfather movies usually do.
8. Why is Diane Keaton even in it? - She starts the film hating Michael and having spent years with no inclination to see him - which makes sense considering the events of II. However for some reason she spends all of this film hanging around him doing nothing in pretty much every other scene. She does this ostensibly "for the kids" excpet that they're never actually there, and she just hangs around not doing anything and occasionally saying stuff of no interest. It's as if they thought it'd be really good to get Keaton back in it, but couldn't be arsed to write her a decent part. So they just have her hanging around. There are a lot of parts like that in this film.
9. It's got a voiceover - Voicovers are usually the preserve of filmakers who can't think of a decent way to tell the story visually. The first two didn't have one, because they were great films. This one starts with one. It's downhill from there on in.
10. Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune. - You know that bit in one of the shitter James Bond films where a street musician (or something) starts playing the Bond theme and Roger Moore says something like "catchy tune" and everyone in the audience shouts "feck off" at the screen in unison? Well they've only gone and put that in this film. For an inexplicable reason about half way through Tony says "Hey dad, I've got a surprise for you, it's an old Sicilian song" and proceeds to sing the Godfather theme tune to his dad, and a table of equally bored looking old men, over dinner, for a full three minutes, whilst flashbacks show Al pinning for a time when Francis Ford Coppola knew how to make great films.
Sadly, I could probably write at least 10 more....For shame Francis, for shame.
Oh yeah, 5.5/10, mostly for the music. I & II are 9.9 and 9.8.
