July 21, 2012

The Godfather Part II (1974)


I must start off by saying that I think the second Godfather film is far better than the previous. I think this because I find that it just worked better than the first. I really did like that film so it shows how good G2 is. This film splits its time between Al Pacino and a very youthful Robert De Niro. De Niro is playing the Marlon Brando character when the Don first comes to America. I thought that the film took about half an hour to really find its feet but once it did then it just got better and better. The film has a running time of 200 minutes which is 25 longer than the first film. I must be honest and say that it didn’t really feel like that for me. I wasn’t expecting the intermission that came but I used it to get supplies for the second half of the film which was truly enjoyable.

Al Pacino was very good as Michael just like he was in the first film but for me I found Robert De Niro to be mesmerising. Every scene he was in was a superb exercise in fine acting. It’s just a shame that he would be reduced to the Meet the Fockers film. Everytime I think of De Niro in this film I remember why I loved this film. Pacino at times has to surrender the film to De Niro and even though they never share a scene (for obvious reasons) its like a fight to become the best in the film.

Like the previous film, I thought that this was a very good ensemble film with several very strong performances. I loved the moving backwards and forwards of the two big plot strands and even after 3 hours and 20 minutes I found the film enthralling but at the end of this film I realised that we would be heading towards the third film which I have never heard good things about.  The Godfather Part 2 is the finest sequel in movie history. Fact

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