I had heard nothing but bad things about it so I lost my chance to watch it objectively.
Why doesn’t anyone like it. I am not trying to defend it, but I am no good at judging things so I need to know the popular opinion so I won’t look like a fool for liking something I shouldn’t.
I didn’t like it simply because it wasn’t as good as the others. I’m sure there is a more specific reason for the diehard fans to dislike it.
I thought Al Pacino as an old guy didn’t seem anything like as ‘formidable’ as young Al.
A plus for the film was watching Sophia Copola because she’s hot.
It really isn’t a bad movie, but the first two were so great that it was just disappointing. Well, very disappointing. I enjoyed it but did not love it when I first saw it.
I have hosted 3 Godfather Parties where we cook up a lot of Italian food and watch the movies and usually we skip on III. One time we watched Goodfellas instead.
I think this is mostly it. Godfather III wasn’t really that bad, but the bar was set so impossibly high by I and II that it can’t help but compare poorly.
(Edit: ditto What Exit?)
The worst thing about it is Sophia Coppola, who couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag (and I think she’s deadly boring as a director too, but that’s another thread).
Other than that, it wasn’t terrible, just not up to the standards of the first two movie. I think that was largely because it did not have any compelling characters in it other than Michael. The first two movies were filled with interesting and colorful characters (several of them based on real gangsters from the gangster era). Part 3 just didn’t have the same kind of cast, and didn’t have that compelling a story either.
But she was nice to look at.
The "kissing cousins relationship between Sofia Coppola’s character and Andy Garcia’s was faintly creepy.
Here’s my specific objection: GFI and GFII each ended in the murder of one of Michael’s immediate family, on Michael’s orders: In GFI, his brother-in-law Carlo; he betrayed the family, he had to die. Tragic necessity. In GFII, his brother Fredo – he betrayed the family, he had to die. Tragic necessity. But GFIII ends with the murder of Michael’s daughter Mary for no reason – not because she betrayed anything, not because she had an intimate relationship with Vincent, not even because of any particular decision Michael made, but just because she happened to be there when the guns started shooting. It’s like, they couldn’t think of how to end it, so they just tacked on some pointless tragedy.
To me the lack of cast members from the earlier ones was a detriment. You had Michael, Kay and Connie and that’s it from the major players of the first two. Admittedly most of the other characters (Vito, Fredo, Sonny, Clemenza, Pentangeli, Tessio, Mama Corleone, etc.) had been killed off or the actors had died, but they should have made Robert Duvall an offer he couldn’t refuse to reprise Tom Hagan. (Duvall was offered about a third of what Pacino got and refused to do the movie until his salary matched Pacino’s, so as with Clemenza they clipped him.)
By far the best scenes to me were the ones with Michael interacting with Kay (the fact Pacino and Keaton had a real life on again-off again long romantic history probably bled through) and Michael:Connie. Most of the newer characters seemed too contrived:
Anthony- opera’s not like getting a band together; you don’t just decide you want to do it one day when you’re almost 30 and then almost immediately get the lead in a company that just happens to be located in the ancestral home of your mob boss father who you want no part of and not question it.
Vincent- I never really understood why they made him an illegitimate son of Sonny? He could as easily have been a legitimate one or a son of Connie or a nephew of Apollonia or whatever.
Don Abbandando- he’s a don in his own right yet we’ve never heard of him, which would imply he wasn’t that important in the time frame of the first two movies, yet he’s Connie’s godfather… huh? The Don made a low guy in another family his daughter’s godfather? Or he was in the Corleone’s and then split off… but so low he wasn’t mentioned even when Clemenza and Tessio were killed off?
The movie was absolutely not without merit, but like Vinnie it was the bastardo of the other two. Plus the Vatican banking scandals and the Illuminati like P2 weave in just didn’t work as well as Michael battling homegrown rivals.
I never got the “shitty actress” vibe applied to Sophia Coppola. She acts just like what she’s portraying - a young semi-clueless college aged girl/woman. I don’t see the bad acting.
The Vatican theme in GF3 is a fictionalized version of a real life scandal: Banco Ambrosiano - Wikipedia. Many of the murders in the movie tried to emulate the real life events to give the film some degree of credibility.
I didn’t hate GF3 - I think it has a few bright spots. What I dislike about it is the straight-forward plot, it had none of the deep acting and intrigue the first 2 films had. I was also turned off by the kissing cousins - just creepy. Very, very creepy.
The real problem was, Winona Ryder was supposed to play the character. For all the decline and flakiness that were to come for Miss Ryder, at the time she was the most in-demand actress in Hollywood and had a demonstrated ability to carry commercially successful movies. Sophia Coppola did not have the voice or gravitas of a serious actress, let alone the central character of an epic film. Imagine making a film that was supposed to star Dakota Fanning but instead starred Nicole Richie. This is what happened 20 years ago.
It didn’t make you feel smart and savvy like you felt watching the first two.
How would you hide a gun at an as-yet unknown meeting place? If your opponent reveals that a police captain will be present, thinking that will protect him, you use that information to find out where to put the gun.
Or, how do you arrange for a helicopter with a 50-caliber machine gun to wipe out a banquet room full of mobsters? Who cares?
Just to point it out, the lady’s name is spelled “Sofia.”
Well, count me among those who don’t care that I am “liking something I shouldn’t.” I liked GF3 a lot. More than GF2, in fact.
GF2 kind of struck me as “more of the same.” It was the bits and pieces left over from the novel that weren’t quite good enough for GF1, plus some filler tossed in. GF3 took an entirely fresh view: what happens to this family a generation later? How will time change them? How will they fit in with the new realities? Will Vito’s philosophy still apply? I thought it was refreshing and unique.
PSXer, in case you’re serious, you’re entitled to like whatever movies you like. A fool is one who lets popular opinion decide his tastes for him. And as others have said, in an alternate universe in which parts 1 and 2 were less acclaimed, 3 wouldn’t seem so bad. As it is, the director was nominated for the top awards from AMPAS and the DGA, so it’s not like the film was universally loathed when it was released. (Sofia Coppola, on the other hand, “won” two Razzies.)
Sampiro and Diogenes have done a good job of summarizing the main objections many have about the film.
Sofia, bless her, was wooden. If her character had been merely a clueless teen, that would have been fine, but she was arguably the pivotal character of the film, not the main character by any stretch, but the one at the center of events, the central point about which other characters’ motivations revolved. It really called for someone more powerful and charismatic.
She may have been moderately hot, but you can’t swing a cat in Hollywood without hitting a hot actress.
BrainGlutton, I respectfully disagree about the ending. The death didn’t seem tacked on at all; it seemed like the point of the whole trilogy. In the beginning, Michael claimed not to want to take over the family business, but when his family was attacked, he moved into the position of power and held on to it ruthlessly. Even killing his brother was depicted as, ironically, a defense of the family. At the conclusion of the trilogy, it turns out everything every compromise he’s made, every sin his committed in the name of his family, has been in vain. Of course he doesn’t order his daughter killed, but he is ultimately powerless to protect her. It’s the logical dramatic ending for the tragedy, and I think it would have been dramatically satisfying if only she had been a character we could give a shit about. As it was, I grieved more for Fredo.Tim R. Mortiss, I agree with you about the concept. It could have been the best one of the three, but what it comes down to for me is that part 2 had DeNiro and Pacino at the top of their games, with some fantastic support. Part 3 had Pacino off his game, with George Hamilton.
To be fair they did also bring back a couple of minor characters ( Richard Bright as faithful executioner Al Neri, Franco Citti as Don Tommasino’s faithful bodyguard Calo ), which I really appreciated. Brought just a little more background continuity to the saga.
I remember looking at my watch and thinking “They’ve been at this damn opera for 25 minutes. Somebody shoot somebody, already!”
This is a good point. He seemed to go from nowhere to lead opera singer (albeit not in a major company) in a matter of weeks.
The storyline also referenced the short papacy of John Paul I. Actually, all of the Godfather movies fictionalize various real-world events (the end of the Batista regime, the corruption of United Fruit and ITT, Sinatra’s mob connections, etc.).
I think I read somewhere, possibly in Wikipedia, that the plot of the opera, Cavalleria rusticana, parallels that of the movie.
Al Martino came back as Johnny Fontanne, which was also a good touch. Vito Scotti was still alive and making guest appearances at the time but for some reason they didn’t get him to play the baker who asked the Don to help his daughter’s fiancee Enzo stay in the U.S., though they did bring Enzo back.