Blu Ray Review: The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone

 

The Godfather Coda is a remastered and re-edited version of The Godfather Part III. To be clear, the plot of the movie is exactly the same. The movie was really just re-edited a bit to change the beginning of the movie and the very end of the movie. The movie actually starts out with the storyline of Michael working with the Catholic Church to buy the company and then transitions to the party that originally started off the movie. So, it basically rearranges some of the scenes and incorporates some of the originally deleted scenes. I think this was done to put the main plot of the movie up front, and then remove the shot of the Twin Towers that was originally used in the movie's opening sequence. 

While I am not one who totally despises Part III, it is certainly not anywhere near the same league as Parts I and II, and many of the same problems with the movie (e.g., Sofia Coppola's horrible acting and non-existent chemistry with Andy Garcia) are still there, and present the same problems as the original version. That said, I do think the overall "redemption" story for Michael that Puzo and Coppola were trying to go for was a good one. I have always thought his attempt to go totally legitimate while dealing with the consequences of the past was a great plot for the movie, and Pachino does a great job in that role.

The only extra included was a very short introduction to the movie by Francis Ford Coppola, which details what he was going for with this revision. There is no director commentary or any featurettes explaining what was re-arranged or why particular edits were chosen, which would have been nice. You really have to either watch the original version first or remember every scene from the original version to tell what is different. 

As I said above, the movie is nowhere near as good as Parts I and II, which were all-time classics. That said, I think it is still a good conclusion to Michael's story, even though I do like the original ending to the movie better. I don't think there was ever going to be a way to make this movie be what the first two installments were, nor do I think this needed to be a separate release. It is inevitable that the movies are going to get a 4k UHD release, and are very likely going to be released as a set, and this could have easily just been included with that as an alternate cut. That said, it is worth watching at some point for die-hard fans of the Godfather movies.