The Godfather Part III doesn’t exist.
That’s what I used to tell people when they used to mention The Godfather Part III in my presence. It wasn’t because I thought that The Godfather Part III was a bad movie, but it was a number of other things that led me to that proclamation.
The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are perfect movies and why mess with perfection?
The ending of The Godfather Part II has Michael Corleone in a state of despair after he has given the most terrible order of his life. The Godfather Part III is mostly about Michael ruminating on that decision and losing even more.
If we are solely going by critical opinion, The Godfather Part III was always considered a misfire. I was pretty happy with how The Godfather Part II left the story and didn’t need to return.
In December of 2020, Paramount released a new cut of The Godfather Part III known as Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Micheal Corleone. Yes, that’s the new title, and yes it’s a mouthful. Director Frances Ford Coppola revisited the third movie, slightly changing the ending, and moving a crucial establishing scene that originally appeared forty minutes into the film, to the beginning. The scene has Micheal Corleone (Al Pacino) talking to Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly) to discuss a $600 million donation to the Vatican. It’s money that will help alleviate the Catholic Church’s debt and also make Michael one of the richest men in the world by giving him control of Immobiliare, a real estate venture owned by the Vatican. This scene appearing at the beginning helps shape the movie much better. (Before watching this new cut, I had attempted to watch The Godfather Part III perhaps a decade ago, but didn’t make it through. This new cut hums along with a pretty quick pace.)
There aren’t too many new additions in this new cut, but rather it’s a case of addition by subtraction. The movie is five minutes shorter and some sections have apparently been moved around. And that new ending which I won’t spoil here, but isn’t that much of a change either.
Discussing only this cut of The Godfather Part III — this movie is not the disaster I’ve been led to believe it is.
Let’s get the problems out of the way first. Sofia Coppola is miscast as Mary Corleone. It’s such a pivotal part of making this movie work emotionally and she’s a far better director than actor. She’s supposed to have chemistry with her first cousin Vincent (Andy Garcia), but their scenes together are often painful. The less said about the incest gnocchi the better.
The other issue I had with this cut of the movie was that some of the edits are really jarring. I’ve since read that it was a problem with the original version as well so that’s not something that’s new with this version. Finally, it seems that the script was definitely rushed because had there been more time to develop it I think some of the problems could’ve been fixed. One thing that could never be fixed is that Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) never appeared in the third movie and his presence is deeply missed.
While the movie isn’t spectacular, there are some really memorable sequences. There’s an assassination attempt with a helicopter and the finale at the concert. But for me, the best scene in the entire movie is when Michael Corleone is giving his confession to the future Pope. It’s here that the entire raison d'etre for The Godfather Part III becomes clear and its new title of Coda fits so well. The whole reason Micheal is looking for this clarity is to free himself of the pain of losing his brother Fredo (John Cazale) at the end of The Godfather Part II. This movie isn’t so much a new chapter in the story, but rather the result of the previous movies.
I still believe that audiences could skip The Godfather Part III (any version) and be perfectly satisfied with The Godfather Part II being the end of the franchise. Michael ends up in mostly the same place — without what he believes is the most important thing in his life, his family. That being said, this new version moves things along well and there’s a fantastic Al Pacino performance at the heart of it.
As far as the new The Godfather Trilogy 4K boxset, it’s magnificent. Released in celebration of The Godfather’s 50th anniversary, the boxset has The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and all three versions of The Godfather Part III on 4K for the first time. I was initially skeptical of how much better it could look in the 4K given that the 2008 trilogy boxset on Blu-ray was already pretty great. The new version is much more than just bringing scanning that old restoration into 4K. Ahead of the release of this set, Coppola and others went into the Paramount vaults and found more footage that they could compile from and make a new remaster. While I haven’t sat down with the first two Godfather movies in full, I watched some of the wedding sequence in The Godfather and it has never looked better. If you have the means (a 4K UHD player and 4K television) this set is well worth the investment. Paramount has released this new restoration effort on Blu-ray, but I’m not sure how that compares to the previously released Blu-ray.
I had my first byline at RogerEbert.com for the new TV show, Halo.
I also had a review at Paste Magazine for the new Apple TV+ series, Pachinko.
The 2022 Oscars are airing on ABC on Sunday night. John Gilpatrick and I made our Oscars picks on the It’s the Pictures Podcast if you need help in your Oscars pool. Also included is a link to a ballot you can fill out at home.
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