Review Detail

This extended version of the final chapter of the Godfather series is a vast improvement 0ver the original, and it begs the question...
Why the hell did Francis Ford Coppola not create this version, and release it to the cinemas back in 1990. Regardless, there were still two key weaknesses in the movie...

Firstly, the absence of Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and substituting his character with his son, B.J. Harrison (George Hamilton) was a plot contrivance that barely managed to keep the movie believable... it was the movie equivalent of putting a patch over a puncture on a wheel. However, this notable flaw in the pre-production casting for the film could hardly be blamed on Wraith.

Secondly, Sofia Coppola's lack was acting skills was also noticeable in several key scenes, especially during the early portion of the movie when the character of Mary (Coppola) confronts her father, Michael Corleone (Pacino) during the morning breakfast on the penthouse balcony. In the scene, Mary questions her father as to whether she is merely a 'front' for the family business, kept in place just to keep a shine on her father's image. There were no other actors in the scene, only Coppola and Pacino, and the viewing audience could easily distinguish between the acting ability of her and him... and there was no way that and 18-year-old novice like her could do a better acting job than Pacino - but, again, this flaw in the movie is not the fault of Wraith.

The inclusion of the deleted scenes and the addition of the coda at the end of the movie served to elevate the film above what is was, and showed us (the audience), what it should have been all along. To a certain extent, the new film footage provided by Wraith, and especially the coda (showing the broken man that Michael Corleone eventually became in his final years), partially compensated for the flaws in Francis Ford Coppola's original production. Personally, I found the scene of the old Michael, with his soul crushed, to be the most poignant of the entire film series, and the perfect ending to the whole saga - that, and his wife's decision to light a candle for him in the church, shown in the end-credits scene.

Symbolically, Wraith's creation of a fanedit of this movie is akin to what happened to Michael Corleone in Italy. There, Michael visits Cardinal Lamberto, and the benevolent Cardinal persuades Michael to make his first confession in 30 years, during which he (Michael) tearfully confesses that he ordered the murder of his brother Fredo (in The Godfather: Part II). Lamberto states that Michael deserved to suffer for his sins, but that could be redeemed. Likewise, Francis Ford Coppola has sinned, and made everyone else suffer, by creating the original Godfather: Part III - but Wraith has redeemed Coppola by 'washing away the sins of the past' (replacing the original with this superior fanedit).

Thank Heaven for Wraith's efforts.