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magnetofan52293 t1_j9y0ycz wrote

The biggest reason I’m not a fan (but it’s still not a terrible movie) is that Michael Corleone is gone and only Al Pacino remains. Now, I love me some Pacino, but Michael is such a unique role for him because he’s so cold, isolated, unpredictable, and calculating. By the end of “Godfather Part 2”, Michael has descended into a soulless husk of man who’s only filled with cold ambition and self preservation.

In Part 3, that haunting version of Michael is completely gone, and we’re just watching Al Pacino. He’s warm, he’s charming, he’s quirky, he’s sarcastic. Never once do I get the sense this is the same ruthless mastermind we saw not even 15 years ago.

I get that the film is about his attempt at redemption and trying to make his father’s empire legitimate, but it just feels too removed from the first two movies. The brazen brutality and mundane humanity is gone, and everything feels too much like every other gangster movie at the time.

It’s still watchable and has some decent stuff in it. Andy Garcia gives what I think is his best performance and Pacino’s breakdown at the end when his daughter is killed is pretty guy-wrenching. But it’s best chance at survival is viewing it as a stand alone gangster movie, and not a follow-up/epilogue to the films that redefined the genre.

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WillysJeepMan t1_j9z7y7d wrote

A well-reasoned explanation, thank you. I agree with your assessment. This film was indeed too far of a jump for Michael’s character arc from Part II. If this was Part IV, it might’ve fit better.

From a physical medium perspective, the film didn’t have the same grain and warmth as the other two. I thought that the film’s score was not on the same level either…. it didn’t capture the moods of the scenes as well as the first two.

But having said that, I did enjoy the film, just not in the way I enjoy the first two.

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