The Godfather Part III, the bastard child of the Godfather not-actually-a-trilogy, gets a bad rap, which is partially undeserved. Yes, Sofia Coppola is not an actress, and no, you can't paper over that without digiswapping her performance Spacey/Plummer style. But a) I counted only two scenes in a two-and-a-half-hour film where she actually let the film down, b) her being in the film at all was not a deliberate choice by anyone but rather one practically forced on the production by behind-the-scenes turmoil, and c) she did a far better job than I could have done (even if I hadn't been a toddler at the time and/or had the right set of plumbing to stop it being a gay romance in addition to kissing cousins, yikes), so I'm not really here to rag on her or blame her for the film being what it is. And as for which two scenes I'm referring to in a), well, you'll just have to guess.
Oh, and d) long-time readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, another franchise film where the acting talent of one of the leads occasionally leaves something to be desired, so it's not like the occasional wooden delivery is a dealbreaker for me.
The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, is the Special Edition version of The Godfather Part III, released in 2020 to "celebrate" the film's 30th anniversary. Director Francis Ford Coppola and actors Al Pacino and Diane Keaton consider it the superior cut.
It's been at least a decade since I saw the theatrical cut of Godfather III, and I have no idea where the DVD went (too bad), and, like the Star Wars OT, Coppola's made sure that the only commercially available cut of the film nowadays is his Special Edition. So aside from obvious changes to the beginning and ending, I'm not at all sure what was changed. Apparently four minutes of footage got the chop, and it certainly does seem faster-paced than either of its predecessors (not necessarily a good thing - Godfather I benefits from a somewhat lazy pace in my opinion, although my three-word review of Godfather II is, admittedly, "good but bloated." The difference between the two is that II had one subplot too many: taking over a casino/something something Rosato Brothers/taking over Cuba/suddenly Senate hearing).
Either version of III is, to me, just a massive expansion of the final shot of Godfather II (Michael growing old alone as a consequence of his own actions). Probably why Coppola doesn't consider it the third part in a trilogy. It's a film that by no means needed to exist, except for the fact that by the end of the 80s Coppola badly needed the money.
Like Part II, Part III/Coda is a darker reworking of Part I. In case I need to explain that, let me do so: when I was younger, I thought the massacre scene at the end of Part II paled in comparison to the one in Part I. Older and wiser, I now understand that (slowly, for the kids in the back) That. Was. The. Point. Michael's victory (such as it is - still waiting for someone to describe the plot of this film in a single sentence) in Part II is extremely hollow. And in Part III/Coda, Vincent (did his character development get left on the cutting room floor?) takes over the Michael role from the first film with a lot less reluctance, eagerly marching to his damnation even as Michael (unlike his father) tries to apologize for the evil he's done.
Wait, is the moral of these films "embrace who you are?" Why exactly does Vito get to die playing with his grandson, his family's future assured, while Michael dies alone? In the cut where he does die, that is.
Okay, let's just hop on that: the recut is subtitled The Death of Michael Corleone, and it cuts out the shot where he actually dies. Interesting choice. But understandable, and it ties neatly in with the "cent'anni" toast in Part II. Less understandable is Coppola's decision to cut Apollonia and Kay out of the final flashback, but I suppose he needed the music to sync up differently.
I don't remember if III blatantly recycled as much music from the first two films' soundtracks as Coda does, to the point where the only "new" bit I could pick out (the aforementioned music over the final scene) turns out to be an opera bit that's not original to the film either. Huh. That it's the best piece of music in the film doesn't speak well of the composer's efforts, but that might be me getting annoyed by the aforementioned blatant recycling.
It's better-lit than its predecessors (shocked to learn that Gordon Willis was still the cinematographer on this one) which is again an artistic choice; I like chiaroscuro, particularly in Godfather I and All the President's Men, but I think he overdid it in II and am happy to see it toned way down in III/Coda.
Oh. And despite its faults... in terms of "film made decades later that covers a substantially similar plot to the first one while introducing a new generation to take over from the old guard," this one wipes the floor with Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. So there's that.
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