The Godfather (1972)

Hey, I finally saw The Godfather. My expectations were tempered, because I'd already read the book, and I really liked it, so I pretty much assumed the movie wouldn't be anywhere near as good. Well, I was wrong. The Godfather is pretty much as good as everyone says it is, and most of the parts they cut from the book were parts I didn't care for anyway, like the Nino and Johnny in Hollywood parts and the Johnny wants his ex-wife back parts. Those were pretty boring, and I didn't miss them in the movie.

Now, I do want to address the part of The Godfather that annoyed me ten years ago when I read it and annoyed me again when I watched it. This would be the "Michael is exiled to Sicily and gets married only to see his wife murdered by his traitorous bodyguard" part. It annoys me because Appollonia has somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 lines in the movie and possibly less in the book, but I'm supposed to believe that Michael is close enough to her to fall in love with her while at the same time he's engaged to Kay Adams (at least, I think he was in the book; he wasn't in the movie). This part irked me in the book because it had no bearing on any other part of the plot, and is never even mentioned again. After Appollonia's car explodes, the very memory of her existence vanishes. The entire episode struck me as senseless; killing Appollonia off so that she won't have to be written into the rest of the plot is lazy, but there was no reason whatsoever we had to know what Michael Corleone did while exiled if it was going to have no bearing at all on the rest of the plot.

But the rest of the movie is really good. Hell, even that part is pretty good, just completely superfluous and mostly senseless. Update the Board, and move on.