MovieChat Forums > The Godfather Part III (1990) Discussion > I'm sorry, but Mary Corleone was the bes...

I'm sorry, but Mary Corleone was the best part of this drab and very boring movie!

posted 4 years ago by hitfan (219)
4 replies | jump to latest

How apt that we have this plot about "Immobliare" which means immobile--that pretty much sums up this film, which appears to be going nowhere.

There's no Tom Hagen. Al Pacino seems like he is sleepwalking and looks like he is in a constant coma. What the hell was up with his hair? Why couldn't they just have him have the same slicked back hairstyle that he had in the Devil's Advocate? He looks like crap here.

And this subplot involving the Vatican? Yawn. It's boring just like all of the times when I was forced to go to Church when I was a kid. It's just a movie about a bunch of old farts doing old fart things.

What I find funny is that all of the fans have this one lynchpin that they must direct all of their hatred onto: Mary Corleone. They cry about nepotism and her supposed bad acting because the director cast his own daughter for the role. But having the original actress Winona Ryder play the part would have made the movie even more boring--would you ever cast her as a charming and lovely young woman who lights up the room? Hardly not. I'm not knocking Winona here, but she would have been miscast. On the other hand, whenever Sofia Coppola is on the screen, I immediately find myself more interested in what is going on. She and Andy Garcia have great chemistry.

So I hear that they're going to make a new edit of this movie that will supposedly improve it. I hope they got Al Pacino to re-film all of his parts in order to inject more personality into all of his scenes. Or maybe just digitally replace him with a block of wood.

Anyway, I just wanted to defend Mary Corleone--she is not the Jar Jar Binks of the Godfather series!

[–] AnagramYYZ (606) 4 years ago

Has it occurred to you that there is no way a man and woman who look like Pacino and Keaton, respectively, could have a daughter looking like Sofia Coppola? That in combination with her amateurish performance take many viewers out of the film when it comes to this pivotal character.

I never had a problem with Mary Corleone, and I also don't have a problem with Sofia Coppola being in the film, just not in that role. I've always advocated that Winona Ryder would have been a major step in the right direction for a better film and more impactful conclusion.

Perhaps you haven't seen the right films of Ryder's if you think she's a miscast. I would recommend avoiding her more hip, teen friendly outings like Heathers, Beetlejuice, Reality Bites and Edward Scissorhands, and instead look towards more serious performances. May Welland in Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, for instance, or Jo March in Little Women. Coppola later directed Ryder in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and that film illustrates her range as she starts as sweet and innocent and ends as a Dracula Bride.

I would also suggest that she "lights up the room" in Autumn in New York with Richard Gere, where she plays a terminal young woman, although this film is pretty terrible, but her character is how I envision the REAL Mary Corleone.

[–] kwestmo (4385) 4 years ago

the problems with this film do not include Mary Corleone.

[–] jewoogle (2269) 4 years ago

i watched this right after watching the sopranos again. man it is very slow. so much talking and boring talking at that. i have to rewatch godfather 1 and 2 havent seen them in 10 years. (slept thru them last night and woke up to godfather 3) the first two are better but i remember them being very slow and kinda hard to get thru at times aswell at points. Sopranos is much more violent and more importantly comedic which i think makes it a much more interesting mob drama even tho it does get slow and boring at some points aswell

[–] pjl69 (2647) 4 years ago

I thought Talia Shire was the best part.