I didn't hate it, but it's a massive step down from the first two films, and nepotism really bit Coppola in the arse with his daughter's miscasting. I mostly felt like nothing in the film really needed to be said, the first two said it all. Great performances by Eli Wallach, Andy Garcia, Joe Mantegna, and Talia Shire though.

Because it’s not good.

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.

I think it is because of the drop-off from the first two movies rather than how the movie is on its own. There is certainly a lot that I enjoyed about the movie, so I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people make it out to be.

its a solid film with some big problems. however the main problem here is youre comparing it to the first 2 movies which are flawless.

Because its god awful+ Sofia Coppola is the worst actress ever

I still laugh at that helicopter scene, the mafioso cliche like its a parody of gangster movies, the scene with Andy Garcia ridind a horse

It insists upon itself

I rewatched it the other day too. It is shockingly awful. All the subtleties of Michael are out the window. The scream at the end is laughable and his diabetic attack is laugh out loud funny. "FREDO".

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It's not bad. It's just weak by comparison to it's predecessors.

It's like any 80s/90s thriller with dubious pacing whereas 1 and 2 were genre defining icons of cinema

Because they compare it to G1 and G2. Any movie would fall short.

But it is important because (1) it rounds out the story and (2) it contrasts how Michael died with how Vito died.

Vito died like a peasant, in his garden with his grandson. Michael died alone on that windswept terrace.

It's complicated, but it basically had three things going against it:

1. The hype of the first two films, which were made with relative creative freedom.
2. Coppola hadn't made a big hit in several years, and it was becoming fashionable to hate on him.
3. The third film was made years after the first two, and Hollywood had changed. Seemingly the entire Hollywood machine was working against Coppola. He didn't get to make the story he wanted to make, he didn't have the time or the budget he needed, and Winona Ryder bailed at the last second, leaving Coppola to make a snap decision to cast his daughter, which was a mistake.

Personally, I also waited years to watch it because I heard bad things. And when I finally watched it... I thought it was actually pretty good. Not as great as the first film (still the best one, imho), but way better than people had given it credit for. The new edit of the movie, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, was even better. I think it's a good ending to the saga, although it could have been better if Duvall hadn't asked for too much money, and Paramount had let Coppola make the movie he wanted to.

The recent cut is sub-subtitled "The Death Of Michael Corleone" and cuts out Michael's death scene. Anyone else notice that just before the helicopter attack, a guy locks the doors of the room... from the inside? Secretly suicidal conspirator, or sloppy filmmaking? I lean toward the latter.

It's a terrible rush job of a movie made by someone who didn't want to make it in the first place.

The 1st set the bar so high, how can you reach those expectations?

The first 2 are cool but there’s nothing cool about cancer.

It's not generally seen as awful, but in comparison to the first two, it is a massive drop off, which is admittedly a very very high bar.

But it also suffers from coming out 20ish years after the first two, which were made more or less back-to-back, so they really feel like one full piece.

I am interested to see the new Coda re-edit, because I do think that it works best as an epilogue, and not something that's supposed to be a full 1/3 or 33% of the total picture on equal footing with the first two, and from my understanding, that's the direction Coppola goes with this newer edit.

The character of Mary Corleone just needed to be played by someone who had layered talent. I feel like every time she’s on screen you are just watching someone act, and in a film that it highly based on character interaction and deception it just doesn’t work as much. The reason the film is widely regarded as the worst of the 3 is that they underutilized one of the characters that drove the film.

“Where’s Mary? Can somebody Hail Mary?”

Dude had 30 years to cut that line but he left it in the new cut.

The biggest problem is that it adds nothing the the story thematically.

Michael dealing with the loss of his family due to his choices was fully covered in Part II.

Add in the Bad performances and bad writing and there just isn’t enough to save it.