What’s Aged the Worst?
Kay Corleone's hair; the incest plot; the gnocchi scene; the running time; George Hamilton; the villains, including Eli Wallach as Don Altobello
In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:58Read transcript
- Kay Corleone's hair is mocked as a poodle perm and more a 1990 haircut than a 1979 one.
- The pushback defends Keaton and Kay: the Italy conversation is one of the great scenes and "I don't fear you, Michael, I dread you" lands.
- The gnocchi scene is said to have aged just as badly as the incest.
- The incest plot is the second worst thing: why not a third cousin, with Game of Thrones and Vincent's uncertain paternity raised.
- Cousin prom dates and the Wolf of Wall Street cousin line come up; the kitchen seduction scene is its own awkwardness.
- The two-hour, 50-minute running time ages worst, and George Hamilton gets another "why, why, why".
- The film has a bad-guy problem: Altobello is no match for the first film's villain or Hyman Roth, and once Zasa is gone Michael faces ineffectual old men.
- Lucchesi is introduced too late despite the "finance is a gun, politics is knowing when to pull the trigger" line and the message that the Vatican, the deal and the mafia are all connected.
- The secret-society plot stays in the background and the characters are hard to keep apart even after several viewings, unlike the first film's cleanly set-up villain.
- Eli Wallach as Don Altobello is a miscast moved here from casting what-ifs; Sinatra almost took the part and would have brought the needed charisma.