The Godfather: Part II

If this movie wasn’t two movies, chopped up and stitched together with little disregard for flow, this would easily be as good as the first. The acting and the cinematography are as legendary as the first. The score is wonderful, especially the variations on the theme, like the child’s toy version. But man, is this movie choppy, and that all from the terrible choice to shove two disparate narratives together, turning the movie into a constant tug of war that undermines the dramatic effect. Bouncing from Vito Corleone’s rise to power to Michael taking on the government and a traitor in the family leaves both stories under-served. It’s hard to get invested in one storyline when you’re torn away from it constantly to spend a half hour with the other. Not to mention that there is no need to tell Vito’s origin story. We know how his story ends, so going back to how he started is needless detail. It doesn’t even have narrative resonance with Michael’s journey, so, it really feels like someone jammed a prequel inside a sequel. And that brings up the other problem: Michael has no arc. The first movie was the descent of a good man, forced to take a role he was never supposed to have. Godfather 2 sees him fully entrenched as the head of the family and … that’s it. There’s no moral quandary to wrestle with. There’s no resistance to accepting an unwanted fate. He is his father’s son, through and through, and that never changes, and that leaves him a rather prickly protagonist. Again, this isn’t a bad movie. But I found its reputation somewhat overblown. It just didn’t have the resonance of the first, in large part due to the haphazard shape of the narrative. Worth a watch, but not worth the legend.