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, released in 2020. The movie starred Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and Talia Shire, all of whom reprised their roles from the first two films. The new cast members included Andy Garcia, Joe Mantegna, George Hamilton, Bridget Fonda, and Sofia Coppola. To be clear, the plot of the movie is exactly the same. The movie was just re-edited, with most of the changes being made to the beginning and the very end of the movie, and some slight tweaking of scenes in between. The movie now starts with the storyline of Michael working with the Catholic Church to legitimize his organization (incorporating one of the deleted scenes into the film). Then it transitions to the party that originally began the movie when it was released back in 1990. It also alters the ending of the film slightly, so Michael's death becomes more metaphorical. It essentially rearranges some of the scenes and incorporates unused footage, but does not alter the overall storyline. I think this was done to bring the main plot of the movie to the forefront (to make the overall story flow better) and 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 the story of Michael's attempt to go totally legitimate while dealing with the consequences of the past was a great plot for the movie, and Pacino does a great job in that role.

The only extra included was a brief introduction to the movie by Francis Ford Coppola, which details what he was aiming 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 it to tell what is different in this one. 

As I mentioned earlier, the movie is nowhere near as good as Parts I and II, which are all-time classics. That said, I think it is still a good conclusion to Michael's story, even though I prefer the original ending to the movie. 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 release (which it did after I wrote this), and are very likely going to be released as a set (which it was), and this could have easily just been included with that as an alternate cut (which it did). That said, it is worth watching at some point for die-hard fans of the Godfather movies.