With the Oscars being handed out this weekend, I wanted to take a moment and revisit two of the greatest movies in American Cinema. The Godfather Parts I and II. While the first two were almost perfect, the third became an unnecessary epitaph of the Corleone family.

When Francis Ford Coppola returned to the Corleone saga in 1990, he attempted to provide closure to Michael’s story through redemption. However, The Godfather Part III stands as a testament to why some stories are better left in their tragic completion. The film’s focus on Vatican banking scandals and corporate intrigue ultimately dilutes the pure tragic poetry that concluded with Part II.

The fundamental misunderstanding of Part III lies in its very premise – that Michael Corleone needed redemption. The brilliance of the first two films, particularly Part II, was their unflinching portrayal of Michael’s transformation into the saga’s ultimate villain. By attempting to redeem Michael through his pursuit of legitimacy via the Vatican Bank, Part III undermines the perfect tragic arc established in the first two films.

Consider how Part II ended: Michael Corleone sitting alone in his Lake Tahoe compound, having ordered his brother’s death, his wife gone, his children estranged, and his soul irredeemably corrupted. This was the perfect conclusion to the tragic arc that began with a young war hero promising his fiancée, “That’s my family, Kay. That’s not me.” The symmetry was complete – Vito built an empire to protect his family, while Michael destroyed his family to protect the empire.

Part III’s venture into Vatican finance and corporate legitimacy feels like a sharp departure from the intimate family tragedy that made the first two films masterpieces. The Byzantine complexity of the Immobiliare scandal lacks the emotional resonance of the previous films’ conflicts. While Sollozzo’s drug trade or Roth’s casino empire were simply vehicles for exploring family loyalty and betrayal, the Vatican banking plot becomes the focus itself, drawing attention away from the core themes of family and moral corruption.

The earlier films’ antagonists – Sollozzo, Barzini, and Roth – were effective because they served as mirrors reflecting different aspects of the Corleone family’s evolution. They operated within an understood moral framework, making Michael’s violations of sacred family bonds all the more shocking. In contrast, Part III’s villains, particularly Archbishop Gilday and Don Licio Lucchesi, feel more like plot devices than fully realized characters serving the story’s themes.

Even the film’s attempt at tragic symmetry through Michael’s daughter Mary’s death feels forced compared to the organic tragedy of Part II. Where Michael’s earlier losses were direct consequences of his own moral choices, Mary’s death plays more like arbitrary punishment rather than the culmination of his character’s journey. The poetic justice of Michael losing everything through his own actions in Part II is diluted by this external tragedy.

The Vatican storyline also creates a problematic shift in scale. The first two films succeeded by keeping their scope intimate – even when dealing with major power struggles, the focus remained on family dynamics. The international scope of Part III’s plot spreads the narrative too thin, losing the claustrophobic intensity that made the original films so powerful.

Moreover, the attempt to parallel Michael’s quest for redemption with the corruption of the Church feels heavy-handed compared to the subtle moral degradation portrayed in the earlier films. Where Parts I and II showed Michael’s corruption through small but significant choices, Part III announces its themes with less nuance.

The film’s greatest weakness may be its misunderstanding of its own predecessor’s conclusion. Part II ended with Michael as the ultimate villain of his own story – a man who destroyed everything his father built while believing he was preserving it. This was a complete tragic arc that needed no redemption story. By attempting to add one, Part III diminishes the power of that original conclusion.

In the end, The Godfather Part III stands as a cautionary tale about the dangers of extending a story beyond its natural conclusion. The first two films created a perfect tragic diptych: Vito’s story of building something dark to protect something beautiful, contrasted with Michael’s destruction of something beautiful to protect something dark. This symmetry needed no additional panel – the tragedy was complete, the moral clear, and the consequences final. The Vatican banking scandal, whatever its dramatic potential, could only serve to complicate what was already perfect in its tragic simplicity.

Like Michael himself, perhaps Coppola’s return to the story was motivated by a desire for redemption that the narrative neither needed nor could support. Some sins, like some stories, are better left in their final state, their consequences eternal and unchanged.

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