Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Godfather, Part III: An offer you *can* refuse

Monique and I just watched the Godfather trilogy. It was on the HD Movie Network over Memorial Day weekend (HD, no ads. Yippee!) It had been quite a while since I had seen I and II, Monique had only seen the first one, and neither of us had seen III, so I recorded them all on the DVR and we finally watched them all over the last few days.

No surprise, Godfathers I & II continue to stand up well. Four-star stuff, and if you've never seen them, do yourself a favor and watch 'em., preferably together. I prefer the first one, but there are lots of responsible opinions in favor of #2, and I shan't quibble here.

But the third one is a stinker. It was made about fifteen years after the others, and after watching it I can only conclude that Francis Ford Coppola needed more money for his winery up in Rutherford, CA. (Which is very cool and well worth touring -- a much better use of your three hours than this crappy movie.)

I knew Godfather, Part III had gotten bad reviews, but somehow I had let the hope that there was still one more half-decent Godfather flick out there that I hadn't yet seen. My hopes were in vain. I had pretty low expectations going in, and it didn't come close to meeting them. I shan't relive the horror, except to say that for the first hour or so, I thought a good editor might have saved this movie. The final two hours convinced me that it was an unredeemable mess. Worse yet, both Monique and I guessed the ultimate end less than five minutes into the flick.

And I don't think I'll even go into the weird cousin-love subplot, except to say that I thought the Corleones came from Sicily, not deepest Appalachia.

I could go on and on, but why bother. It was crap. You've been warned.

The last thing I'll say is that tonight Monique and I are watching Terror of Mechagodzilla (1978) and it makes quite a bit more sense than Godfather, Part III.

I won't even provide a link out to number three, so as not to encourage any of you. But here are a couple of handy links to more on Godfather, Parts I & II, which I would heartily encourage anybody to watch, or watch again.

IMDB:
The Godfather
The Godfather, Part II

Netflix:
The Godfather
The Godfather, Part II

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