Review of The Godfather Part II (1974) by Andrewr — 22 Mar 2008

Vastly overrated. The plot is identical to both other movies in the series (there's a party, someone tries to kill the Don, the Don tricks the real culprit into revealing himself, a short interlude for some random marital melodrama, and then the Don has all the bad guys simultaneously murdered.

Fin.), the themes are shallow and largely inapplicable to anybody not involved in organized crime (violence begets violence, huh? YOU DON'T SAY.), the characters are flat (Michael is the grim Zen hardass, Fredo is the blubbering idiot, Kay is the shrill square, etc.

), the two "halves" of the movie don't inform each other at all, so that the entire production is ultimately just remaindered bits of the book that they couldn't fit into the first film, and ultimately none of the characters do anything worthy of praise or emulation, and none of the conflicts are worth caring about.

The plot meanders wildly over the punishing 200-minute running time, and when it comes time to wrap up they just have Michael give a little speech where he says "oh, by the way, we can just kill all those people who've been bothering us," and then they go do that.

I will never understand why they had to make 10 hours worth of movies just to point out that organized crime is not a suitable environment in which to raise and preserve a well-adjusted family, let alone why that's considered a rare and notable achievement.