Was The Godfather Part III good or bad?

Only good things about it are the last 3 minutes,

I really didn't like it. It felt slick and hollow, and the big set piece (the Atlantic City helicopter attack) was like something out of "Die Hard". The script didn't give the actors the great scenes they had in the first two movies. It wasn't as bad as the movie Coppola made the year before, "Tucker: The Man and His Dream," but that's about the only thing I can say in its favor.

It was fine. People were just distracted by Sofia Coppola's nose 👃

I liked it. It's not as good as the original and Part II but I like the operatic nature of III. Andy Garcia was hot as fuck. I wanted him to torment me with his pinga!

I concur with R3.

Part of the hostility towards the film was Catholic hostility towards the narrative, which was remarkably like the plot developed by David A Yallop's book 'In God's Name' (1984), which postulated that Albino Luchiani, Pope John Paul I, had been assassinated as an outgrowth of financial corruption involving the Vatican Bank, mafiosi, Freemasons, and the CIA. This was a tremendous shock to religious sensibilities, such that many were unable to separate their assessment of 'The Godfather, Part III' from them. It was rather like the Christian, and particularly, Catholic reactions to 'The Da Vinci Code' (2006), which was to decry it as the stupidest, worst piece of shit they'd ever seen in their lives (by which they really meant that they were religiously offended by it).

Mostly passed off Winona Ryder fans.

Funny how offended Catholics were by The Da Vinci Code, but they didn't start a fatwa against its author. Which shows the difference between radical Islam and the civilized world. We must remember Cat Stevens supported the fatwa in an NPR interview at the time. Now of course he backtracks on it due to the need to sell his product.

Conservative Catholics' crusades against many basic human rights is every bit as egregious as a fatwa against an individual, ZW, and just as incongruous in the 'civilized world.'

Your attempt to deflect to Islam is noted.

[quote] Only good things about it are the last 3 minutes,

I loved Mary saying "Dad" and then falling down and Connie putting her black veil over her head.

[quote]People were just distracted by Sofia Coppola's nose

I was more distracted by her hairlip.

R9 I meant more the flashbacks of Michael dancing with the women of his life and reminiscing then dying alone in the courtyard where Apolonia died. Honestly the only redeemable part of the film.

Sofia has an annoying voice.

I don't think Sofia is that bad in the movie. It comes off better in Coda, the most recent edit by FFC.

Sofia is a terrible actress. She should stay behind the camera.

It wasn’t good. The weird cousin incest storyline was weird. Sofia Coppola was hideous as fuck and Al Pacino looked like doctor Kevorkian instead of Michael Corleone. It sucked balls and Robert Duvall knew it so he had his character killed off.

[quote]I don't think Sofia is that bad in the movie.

I'm cringing on your behalf.

The end is pretty exciting. It would be better spoilerx x x x x x x x x x x x

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if someone else was in the Sofia role. She so bland her death seems last tragic. Imagine seeing a beautiful young Winona Ryder at the peak of her fame die on screen like that. It would have been so sad.

Oh, R8, any organized religion is something to take something away from, but going orthodox is crazy. I was more startled that Steve would support the fatwa than anything else.

Sofia was terrible as an actress but I don't get the digs of her being ugly, I think she has an exotic type of beauty, though she did grow into her looks more with age.

The problem was that it was a "Godfather" movie.

The same film, about a mafia family, not named Corleone would have been seen as fine and entertaining. Aficionados were rightly annoyed by how out of character Michael and Connie were written, how what happened between Mike and Kay is never alluded to other than to say it was a divorce ! All of this and the tone shifting was kind of a betrayal to the original story.

Now I understand the actors want to play something else. And everything was said at the end of the second film. OK. So they should have just made it another family Mafia story. Change the names ! Legitimize the actors having fun with the tropes. People still would have compared it to The Godfather, but it wouldn'have seemed like a betrayal of Mario Puzo ' s universe. Also, they would have been free to invite James Caan to the party, which would have been a blast !

Who knows Caan might have been able to convince Robert Duvall since they are good friends.

People jumping on the band wagon to ridicule a 18 year old Sofia's appearance was mean spirited. She had the last laugh eventually.

Sofia was grotesquely bad and ruined the whole film,

Both in the original theatrical release and in Coppola's re-edit, it's a mediocre film. A mediocre film with "Godfather" in the title, continuing the story of those characters, is a bad film. It was unnecessary and too late, made for the wrong reasons by a director hungry for a hit, one whose major contribution to his art form really consisted of four films in the '70s. Sofia Coppola's amateurish performance is another big strike against it, but the best teen actress working in 1989-90 wouldn't have made it a good film, even if she would have made the Mary scenes less wince-inducing.

(For that matter, why was Mary a teenager anyway? The character is at least four or five in 1959, when Godfather II's timeline ends. Mary should have been older by 1979-80.)

James Caan's participations also wouldn't have saved it, although, again, his replacements at Michael's right hand are nullities.

As mentioned by other posters, the two main flaws are Michael Corleone's out-of-character portrayal, in both script and performance, and the stupid helicopter attack. The previous poster was right about it being a "Die Hard" type of scene -- really of of place in this film.

In the first two films, Pacino gives restrained performances. But here, he's doing what had become his over-the-top shtick. Michael may had developed guilt about Fredo's death, but he would not have sought forgiveness.

I think what bothers me most is the change in Michael. Where in the first 2 he is a serious, brooding calculated man of few words now he is a lovable affable old mob dude...watching 2 and 3 side by side, it's like watching 2 completely different characters.

It's awful. Down there with--remember?--"The Cotton Club."

Sofia's performance was so sedate that she made Mary seem "special." I feel bad for her, because she got tossed into the film at the last minute after Winona dropped out, but she really was blah.

Sofia was kind of forced into it. The studio was all set to find a replacement for Ryder but Francis began filming Sofia without telling anyone.

The studio wanted either Anabella Sciorra or Laura San Giacomo (who had both auditioned) to fly over and take the part but by the time they found out about the recasting lots of scenes with Sofia had been shot.

People talk about Sofia Coppola's shit acting but it was all about Diane Keaton's hair.

R28 Last summer or early fall, The Godfather Part III was airing on one of the Showtime channels. A friend was staying with me and we decided to watch to make fun of it and I had forgotten how bad Keaton's hair looked.