- Relive the greatest moments from "The Godfather II" in an open-world action experience inspired by the movie.
- Act like a mobster to command respect, intimidating and extorting business owners and rival families with devastating new attacks and executions.
- Recruit, develop, and promote members of your crime family. Recruit your friends to join your family and take them into battle online to find out who is the Don of Dons.
- Bring up to three crew members along on jobs, including an arsonist, demolitions expert, safecracker, and more. Command their actions in battle and unleash their specialties on your enemies.
- Be a true Don as you coordinate all the action using a 3D world map: survey your turf, place defenses on businesses, analyze crime patterns, identify new illicit racket monopolies, and choose the target of your next attack.
This brilliant companion piece t! o the original
The Godfather continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells two stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, played with uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the talents who helped make
The Godfather, Coppola has produced a movie of staggering magnitude and vision, and undeniably the best sequel ever made. Robert De Niro won an Oscar®; the film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1974.Francis Ford Coppola took some of the deep background from the life of Mafia chief Vito Corleone--the patriarch of Mario Puzo's bestselling novel
The Godfather--and built around it a stunning sequel to his Oscar-winning, 1972 hit film. Robert De Niro plays Vito as a young Sicilian immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York City's Little Italy. Coppola weaves in and out of the story of Vito's trans! formation into a powerful crime figure, contrasting that evolu! tion aga inst efforts by son Michael Corleone to spread the family's business into pre-Castro Cuba. As memorable as the first film is,
The Godfather II is an amazingly intricate, symmetrical tragedy that touches upon several chapters of 20th-century history and makes a strong case that our destinies are written long before we're born. This was De Niro's first introduction to a lot of filmgoers, and he makes an enormous impression. But even with him and a number of truly brilliant actors (including maestro Lee Strasberg), this is ultimately Pacino's film and a masterful performance.
--Tom KeoghThis brilliant companion piece to the original
The Godfather continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells two stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, played with uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the talents who helped ma! ke
The Godfather, Coppola has produced a movie of staggering magnitude and vision, and undeniably the best sequel ever made. Robert De Niro won an Oscar®; the film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1974.Francis Ford Coppola took some of the deep background from the life of Mafia chief Vito Corleone--the patriarch of Mario Puzo's bestselling novel
The Godfather--and built around it a stunning sequel to his Oscar-winning, 1972 hit film. Robert De Niro plays Vito as a young Sicilian immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York City's Little Italy. Coppola weaves in and out of the story of Vito's transformation into a powerful crime figure, contrasting that evolution against efforts by son Michael Corleone to spread the family's business into pre-Castro Cuba. As memorable as the first film is,
The Godfather II is an amazingly intricate, symmetrical tragedy that touches upon several chapters of 20th-century history and makes a strong cas! e that our destinies are written long before we're born. This ! was De N iro's first introduction to a lot of filmgoers, and he makes an enormous impression. But even with him and a number of truly brilliant actors (including maestro Lee Strasberg), this is ultimately Pacino's film and a masterful performance.
--Tom KeoghTHE GODFATHER: Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather (1972) is a touchstone of cinema: one of the most widely imitated, quoted, and lampooned movies of all time. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino star as Vito Corleone and his youngest son, Michael, respectively. It is the late 1940s in New York and Corleone is, in the parlance of organized crime, a "godfather" or "don," the head of a Mafia family. Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Marines to fight in World War II, has returned a captain and a war hero. Having long ago rejected the family business, Michael shows up at the wedding of his sister, Connie (Talia Shire! ), with his non-Italian girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), who learns for the first time about the family "business." A few months later at Christmas time, the don barely survives being shot by gunmen in the employ of a drug-trafficking rival whose request for aid from the Corleones' political connections was rejected. After saving his father from a second assassination attempt, Michael persuades his hotheaded eldest brother, Sonny (James Caan), and family advisors Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) that he should be the one to exact revenge on the men responsible. After murdering a corrupt police captain and the drug trafficker, Michael hides out in Sicily while a gang war erupts at home. Falling in love with a local girl, Michael marries her, but she is later slain by Corleone enemies in an attempt on Michael's life. Sonny is also butchered, having been betrayed by Connie's husband. As Michael returns home and convinces Kay to marry him, his father recover! s and makes peace with his rivals, realizing that another powe! rful don was pulling the strings behind the narcotics endeavor that began the gang warfare. Once Michael has been groomed as the new don, he leads the family to a new era of prosperity, then launches a campaign of murderous revenge against those who once tried to wipe out the Corleones, consolidating his family's power and completing his own moral downfall. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards and winning for Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay, The Godfather was followed by a pair of sequels.
THE GODFATHER PART II: This brilliant companion piece to the original The Godfather continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells two stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, played with uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the talents who helped make The Godfather, Coppola has produced a movie of sta! ggering magnitude and vision, and undeniably the best sequel ever made. Robert De Niro won an Oscar®; the film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1974.
THE GODFATHER PART III: One of the greatest sagas in movie history continues! In this third film in the epic Corleone trilogy, Al Pacino reprises the role of powerful family leader Michael Corleone. Now in his 60's, Michael is dominated by two passions: freeing his family from crime and finding a suitable successor. That successor could be fiery Vincent (Andy Garcia)... but he may also be the spark that turns Michael's hope of business legitimacy into an inferno of mob violence. Francis Ford Coppola directs Pacino, Garcia, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Eli Wallach, Sofia Coppola, Joe Montegna and others in this exciting, long-awaited film that masterfully explores the themes of power, tradition, revenge and love. Seven Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture.Throughout his long! , wandering, often distinguished career Francis Ford Coppola h! as made many films that are good and fine, many more that are flawed but undeniably interesting, and a handful of duds that are worth viewing if only because his personality is so flagrantly absent. Yet he is and always shall be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga. The films are our very own Shakespearean cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business. The first film remains a towering achiev! ement, brilliantly cast and conceived. The entry of Michael Corleone into the family business, the transition of power from his father, the ruthless dispatch of his enemies--all this is told with an assurance that is breathtaking to behold. And it turned out to be merely prologue; two years later The Godfather, Part II balanced Michael's ever-greater acquisition of power and influence during the fall of Cuba with the story of his father's own youthful rise from immigrant slums. The stakes were higher, the story's construction more elaborate, and the isolated despair at the end wholly earned. (Has there ever been a cinematic performance greater than Al Pacino's Michael, so smart and ambitious, marching through the years into what he knows is his own doom with eyes open and hungry?) The Godfather, Part III was mostly written off as an attempted cash-in, but it is a wholly worthy conclusion, less slow than autumnally patient and almost merciless in the way it! brings Michael's past sins crashing down around him even as h! e tries to redeem himself. --Bruce Reid
On the DVD
People used to say this was Frank Sinatra's world, and the rest of us just lived in it. After watching the multiple special features in the box set The Godfather: Coppola Restoration, one might conclude it's actually time for a cultural and historical revision: This is the Corleone family's world. The rest of us better tread lightly. Actually, the point of the half-dozen or so features crammed onto a disc accompanying the beautifully restored The Godfather, The Godfather II and The Godfather III, is that The Godfather movies have penetrated popular culture in such a deep and meaningful way that they are second-nature to everything. David Chase, creator of and writer on The Sopranos, for example, describes in the featurette "Godfather World" that his hit HBO series was intended to be the story of the first generation of mobsters actually influence! d by Francis Ford Coppola's hit trilogy. Joe Mantegna calls the three films "the Italian Star Wars." (Mantegna co-stars in The Godfather III.) Alec Baldwin says no matter what one is doing, one is compelled to stop and watch the films if they're on television. Richard Belzer calls the films "a religion."
And so on. A number of people similarly testify in "Godfather World" to the importance and ubiquitousness of The Godfather and its sequels in American life. There's no point in arguing, so its best to move on to the other featurettes, including "The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't," reviewing in detail much of what has been said about Paramount's mistreatment of Coppola, about casting fights (Steve McQueen as Michael?), about the studio's assumption they were getting a quick-and-dirty B-movie, and about producer Robert Evans' determination to keep his choice of director and unlikely actors under his wing. Fresh information within the special fea! tures, however, begins with "… When the Shooting Stopped," a! fine st udy of post-production on The Godfather, with several surprising and fascinating facts. Among emerging details is an explanation of why Michael Corleone's scream toward the end of The Godfather III is silenced out. (Hint: it was meant to be the inverse of a sound effect in the first movie.) "Emulsional Rescue: Revealing The Godfather" talks about the painstaking work of restoring the first two films, beginning with a phone call from Coppola to Steven Spielberg (after the latter's DreamWorks studio became part of the Viacom family) asking if he'd request money from Paramount for restoration work. "The Godfather On the Red Carpet is a negligible series of fawning statements about the movie from hot young actors, while "Four Short Films" are brief and enjoyable takes on different aspects of The Godfather's impact on modern living. --Tom Keogh
Stills from The Godfather - The Coppola Restor! ation Giftset (Click for larger image) On the DVD People used to say this was Frank Sinatra's world, and the rest of us just lived in it. After watching the multiple special features in the box set
The Godfather - Coppola Restoration, one might conclude it's actually time for a cultural and historical revision: This is the Corleone family's world. The rest of us better tread lightly. Actually, ! the point of the half-dozen or so features crammed onto a disc accompanying the beautifully restored
The Godfather, The Godfather II and
The Godfather III, is that
The Godfather movies have penetrated popular culture in such a deep and meaningful way that they are second-nature to everything. David Chase, creator of and writer on
The Sopranos, for example, describes in the featurette "Godfather World" that his hit HBO series was intended to be the story of the first generation of mobsters actually influenced by Francis Ford Coppola's hit trilogy. Joe Mantegna calls the three films "the Italian
Star Wars." (Mantegna co-stars in
The Godfather III.) Alec Baldwin says no matter what one is doing, one is compelled to stop and watch the films if they're on television. Richard Belzer calls the films "a religion." And so on. A number of people similarly testify in "Godfather World" to the importance and ubiquitousness of
The Godfath! er and its sequels in American life. There's no point in a! rguing, so its best to move on to the other featurettes, including "The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't," reviewing in detail much of what has been said about Paramount's mistreatment of Coppola, about casting fights (Steve McQueen as Michael?), about the studio's assumption they were getting a quick-and-dirty B-movie, and about producer Robert Evans' determination to keep his choice of director and unlikely actors under his wing. Fresh information within the special features, however, begins with "… When the Shooting Stopped," a fine study of post-production on
The Godfather, with several surprising and fascinating facts. Among emerging details is an explanation of why Michael Corleone's scream toward the end of The Godfather III is silenced out. (Hint: it was meant to be the inverse of a sound effect in the first movie.) "Emulsional Rescue: Revealing
The Godfather" talks about the painstaking work of restoring the first two films, beginning with a phone call from Co! ppola to Steven Spielberg (after the latter's DreamWorks studio became part of the Viacom family) asking if he'd request money from Paramount for restoration work. "
The Godfather On the Red Carpet is a negligible series of fawning statements about the movie from hot young actors, while "Four Short Films" are brief and enjoyable takes on different aspects of
The Godfather's impact on modern living.
--Tom Keogh Stills from The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration Giftset (Click for larger image) The
Godfather saga may have its roots in pulp fiction, but the vision of director Francis Ford Coppola turned the story of Don Vito Corleone into an epic, multigenerational metaphor for modern American society and its place in the world. Coppola's musical choices were equally sage; aged Italian scoring legend Nino Rota's mournful solo trumpet theme ("Godfather Waltz") would become both a crucial, emotional link in all three films and an enduring modern icon on a par with the themes to
Star Wars and
Jaws.
This compendium gathers key themes from the Godfather trilogy in modern rerecordings, by conductor Paul Bateman and the Prague Philharmonic, that are sonically pristine and faithful to the originals. Utilizing the rich musical heritage of his native Italy (and occasionally ev! oking memories of his great collaborations with Fellini), Rota! 's Go dfather music would ultimately net him his only Oscar®, for Godfather II. Carmine Coppola, the director's father, supplements Rota's work with music that's more distinctly ethnic, while the prelude from Italian classical composer Pietro Mascagani's masterful opera Cavalleria Rusticana becomes a crucial element in Godfather III, filling the void left by Rota's passing in 1979. --Jerry McCulleyFrancis Ford Coppola's epic masterpiece features Marlon Brando in his Oscar©-winning role as the patriarch of the Corleone family. Director Coppola paints a chilling portrait of the Sicilian clan's rise and near fall from power in America, masterfully balancing the story between the Corleone's family life and the ugly crime business in which they are engaged. Based on Mario Puxo's best-selling novel and featuring career-making performances by Al Pacino, James Cann and Robert Duvall, this searing and brilliant film garnered ten Academy Award® ! nominations, and won three including Best Picture of 1972. This brilliant companion piece to the original The Godfather continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells two stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, played with uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the talents who helped make The Godfather, Coppola has produced a movie of staggering magnitude and vision, and undeniably the best sequel ever made. Robert De Niro won an Oscar®; the film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1974. The Godfather
Generally acknowledged as a bona fide classic, this Francis Ford Coppola film is one of those rare experiences that feels perfectly right from beginning to end--almost as if everyone involved had been born to participate in it. Based on Mario Puzo's bestselling novel about a Mafia dynast! y, Coppola's Godfather extracted and enhanced the most univers! al theme s of immigrant experience in America: the plotting-out of hopes and dreams for one's successors, the raising of children to carry on the good work, etc. In the midst of generational strife during the Vietnam years, the film somehow struck a chord with a nation fascinated by the metamorphosis of a rebellious son (Al Pacino) into the keeper of his father's dream. Marlon Brando played against Puzo's own conception of patriarch Vito Corleone, and time has certainly proven the actor correct. The rest of the cast, particularly James Caan, John Cazale, and Robert Duvall as the rest of Vito's male brood--all coping with how to take the mantle of responsibility from their father--is seamless and wonderful. --Tom Keogh
The Godfather, Part II
Francis Ford Coppola took some of the deep background from the life of Mafia chief Vito Corleone--the patriarch of Mario Puzo's bestselling novel The Godfather--and built around it a stunning sequel to his Oscar-winning, 1972 ! hit film. Robert De Niro plays Vito as a young Sicilian immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York City's Little Italy. Coppola weaves in and out of the story of Vito's transformation into a powerful crime figure, contrasting that evolution against efforts by son Michael Corleone to spread the family's business into pre-Castro Cuba. As memorable as the first film is, The Godfather II is an amazingly intricate, symmetrical tragedy that touches upon several chapters of 20th-century history and makes a strong case that our destinies are written long before we're born. This was De Niro's first introduction to a lot of filmgoers, and he makes an enormous impression. But even with him and a number of truly brilliant actors (including maestro Lee Strasberg), this is ultimately Pacino's film and a masterful performance. --Tom KeoghThis brilliant companion piece to the original film continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells tw! o stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, ! played w ith uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Pacino) as the new Don.Francis Ford Coppola took some of the deep background from the life of Mafia chief Vito Corleone--the patriarch of Mario Puzo's bestselling novel The Godfather--and built around it a stunning sequel to his Oscar-winning, 1972 hit film. Robert De Niro plays Vito as a young Sicilian immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York City's Little Italy. Coppola weaves in and out of the story of Vito's transformation into a powerful crime figure, contrasting that evolution against efforts by son Michael Corleone to spread the family's business into pre-Castro Cuba. As memorable as the first film is, The Godfather II is an amazingly intricate, symmetrical tragedy that touches upon several chapters of 20th-century history and makes a strong case that our destinies are written long before we're born. This was De Niro's first introduction to a lot of filmgoers, and he makes an enormous ! impression. But even with him and a number of truly brilliant actors (including maestro Lee Strasberg), this is ultimately Pacino's film and a masterful performance. --Tom KeoghTHE GODFATHER: Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather (1972) is a touchstone of cinema: one of the most widely imitated, quoted, and lampooned movies of all time. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino star as Vito Corleone and his youngest son, Michael, respectively. It is the late 1940s in New York and Corleone is, in the parlance of organized crime, a "godfather" or "don," the head of a Mafia family. Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Marines to fight in World War II, has returned a captain and a war hero. Having long ago rejected the family business, Michael shows up at the wedding of his sister, Connie (Talia Shire), with his non-Italian girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), who learns for t! he first time about the family "business." A few months later ! at Chris tmas time, the don barely survives being shot by gunmen in the employ of a drug-trafficking rival whose request for aid from the Corleones' political connections was rejected. After saving his father from a second assassination attempt, Michael persuades his hotheaded eldest brother, Sonny (James Caan), and family advisors Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) that he should be the one to exact revenge on the men responsible. After murdering a corrupt police captain and the drug trafficker, Michael hides out in Sicily while a gang war erupts at home. Falling in love with a local girl, Michael marries her, but she is later slain by Corleone enemies in an attempt on Michael's life. Sonny is also butchered, having been betrayed by Connie's husband. As Michael returns home and convinces Kay to marry him, his father recovers and makes peace with his rivals, realizing that another powerful don was pulling the strings behind the narcotics endeavor that began the gan! g warfare. Once Michael has been groomed as the new don, he leads the family to a new era of prosperity, then launches a campaign of murderous revenge against those who once tried to wipe out the Corleones, consolidating his family's power and completing his own moral downfall. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards and winning for Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay, The Godfather was followed by a pair of sequels.
THE GODFATHER PART II: This brilliant companion piece to the original The Godfather continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells two stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, played with uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the talents who helped make The Godfather, Coppola has produced a movie of staggering magnitude and vision, and undeniably the best sequel ever made.! Robert De Niro won an Oscar®; the film received six Academy ! Awards, including Best Picture of 1974.
THE GODFATHER PART III: One of the greatest sagas in movie history continues! In this third film in the epic Corleone trilogy, Al Pacino reprises the role of powerful family leader Michael Corleone. Now in his 60's, Michael is dominated by two passions: freeing his family from crime and finding a suitable successor. That successor could be fiery Vincent (Andy Garcia)... but he may also be the spark that turns Michael's hope of business legitimacy into an inferno of mob violence. Francis Ford Coppola directs Pacino, Garcia, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Eli Wallach, Sofia Coppola, Joe Montegna and others in this exciting, long-awaited film that masterfully explores the themes of power, tradition, revenge and love. Seven Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture.Throughout his long, wandering, often distinguished career Francis Ford Coppola has made many films that are good and fine, many more that are flawed but undeni! ably interesting, and a handful of duds that are worth viewing if only because his personality is so flagrantly absent. Yet he is and always shall be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga. The films are our very own Shakespearean cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business. The first film remains a towering achievement, brilliantly cast and conceived. The entry of Michael Corleone i! nto the family business, the transition of power from his fath! er, the ruthless dispatch of his enemies--all this is told with an assurance that is breathtaking to behold. And it turned out to be merely prologue; two years later The Godfather, Part II balanced Michael's ever-greater acquisition of power and influence during the fall of Cuba with the story of his father's own youthful rise from immigrant slums. The stakes were higher, the story's construction more elaborate, and the isolated despair at the end wholly earned. (Has there ever been a cinematic performance greater than Al Pacino's Michael, so smart and ambitious, marching through the years into what he knows is his own doom with eyes open and hungry?) The Godfather, Part III was mostly written off as an attempted cash-in, but it is a wholly worthy conclusion, less slow than autumnally patient and almost merciless in the way it brings Michael's past sins crashing down around him even as he tries to redeem himself. --Bruce Reid
On the DVD
People used to say this was Frank Sinatra's world, and the rest of us just lived in it. After watching the multiple special features in the box set The Godfather: Coppola Restoration, one might conclude it's actually time for a cultural and historical revision: This is the Corleone family's world. The rest of us better tread lightly. Actually, the point of the half-dozen or so features crammed onto a disc accompanying the beautifully restored The Godfather, The Godfather II and The Godfather III, is that The Godfather movies have penetrated popular culture in such a deep and meaningful way that they are second-nature to everything. David Chase, creator of and writer on The Sopranos, for example, describes in the featurette "Godfather World" that his hit HBO series was intended to be the story of the first generation of mobsters actually influenced by Francis Ford Coppola's hit trilogy. Joe Mantegna calls the three ! films "the Italian Star Wars." (Mantegna co-stars in ! The Godfather III.) Alec Baldwin says no matter what one is doing, one is compelled to stop and watch the films if they're on television. Richard Belzer calls the films "a religion."
And so on. A number of people similarly testify in "Godfather World" to the importance and ubiquitousness of The Godfather and its sequels in American life. There's no point in arguing, so its best to move on to the other featurettes, including "The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't," reviewing in detail much of what has been said about Paramount's mistreatment of Coppola, about casting fights (Steve McQueen as Michael?), about the studio's assumption they were getting a quick-and-dirty B-movie, and about producer Robert Evans' determination to keep his choice of director and unlikely actors under his wing. Fresh information within the special features, however, begins with "… When the Shooting Stopped," a fine study of post-production on The Godfather, with several surprisi! ng and fascinating facts. Among emerging details is an explanation of why Michael Corleone's scream toward the end of The Godfather III is silenced out. (Hint: it was meant to be the inverse of a sound effect in the first movie.) "Emulsional Rescue: Revealing The Godfather" talks about the painstaking work of restoring the first two films, beginning with a phone call from Coppola to Steven Spielberg (after the latter's DreamWorks studio became part of the Viacom family) asking if he'd request money from Paramount for restoration work. "The Godfather On the Red Carpet is a negligible series of fawning statements about the movie from hot young actors, while "Four Short Films" are brief and enjoyable takes on different aspects of The Godfather's impact on modern living. --Tom Keogh
Stills from The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration Giftset (Click for larger image) On the DVD People used to say this was Frank Sinatra's world, and the rest of us just lived in it. After watching the multiple special features in the box set
The Godfather - Coppola Restoration, one might conclude it's actually time for a cultural and historical revision: This is the Corleone family's world. The rest of us better tread lightly. Actually, the point of the half-dozen or so features crammed onto a disc accompa! nying the beautifully restored
The Godfather, The Godfa! ther II< /i> and
The Godfather III, is that
The Godfather movies have penetrated popular culture in such a deep and meaningful way that they are second-nature to everything. David Chase, creator of and writer on
The Sopranos, for example, describes in the featurette "Godfather World" that his hit HBO series was intended to be the story of the first generation of mobsters actually influenced by Francis Ford Coppola's hit trilogy. Joe Mantegna calls the three films "the Italian
Star Wars." (Mantegna co-stars in
The Godfather III.) Alec Baldwin says no matter what one is doing, one is compelled to stop and watch the films if they're on television. Richard Belzer calls the films "a religion." And so on. A number of people similarly testify in "Godfather World" to the importance and ubiquitousness of
The Godfather and its sequels in American life. There's no point in arguing, so its best to move on to the other featurettes, including "The Masterp! iece That Almost Wasn't," reviewing in detail much of what has been said about Paramount's mistreatment of Coppola, about casting fights (Steve McQueen as Michael?), about the studio's assumption they were getting a quick-and-dirty B-movie, and about producer Robert Evans' determination to keep his choice of director and unlikely actors under his wing. Fresh information within the special features, however, begins with "… When the Shooting Stopped," a fine study of post-production on
The Godfather, with several surprising and fascinating facts. Among emerging details is an explanation of why Michael Corleone's scream toward the end of The Godfather III is silenced out. (Hint: it was meant to be the inverse of a sound effect in the first movie.) "Emulsional Rescue: Revealing
The Godfather" talks about the painstaking work of restoring the first two films, beginning with a phone call from Coppola to Steven Spielberg (after the latter's DreamWorks studio became! part of the Viacom family) asking if he'd request money from ! Paramoun t for restoration work. "
The Godfather On the Red Carpet is a negligible series of fawning statements about the movie from hot young actors, while "Four Short Films" are brief and enjoyable takes on different aspects of
The Godfather's impact on modern living.
--Tom Keogh Stills from The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration Giftset (Click for larger image) On the eve of the Cuban revolution, a major mob meeting in Havana takes a bloody turn. The Don of your family is killed, and you must take the reigns and lead your battered organization. Success breeds opportunity, so when Michael Corleone comes under investigation by a Senate Committee on Organized Crime, the Corleone Family calls upon you to reestablish its operation in New York and expand into a new territory -- Miami. Build up your arsenal, build alliances, and make whatever deals you need to as you fight off attacks and strike back at your rivals. There’ll be a price on your head and a target on your back, but don’t take it personally. After all, it’s only business.Inspired by the events of the classic film of the same name, in
The Godfather II players take on the role of Dominic Corleone, a little-known member of the Corleone crime family tasked with rebuilding the once dominant, but now faltering mafia empire. Set in an open-w! orld gameplay universe full of dangers and opportunities, players must maintain and develop the Corleone crime family's resources using every and all means available if they hope in the end to prevail in the ultimate challenge, to act like a mobster, but think like a Don.
Command a crew of three as Dominic Corleone.
View larger. |
Analyze your empire with 'The Don's View' .
View larger. |
Enjoy open-world gameplay.
View larger. |
Take your family online.
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StoryOn the! eve of the Cuban revolution, a major mob meeting in Havana takes a bloody turn. The Don of your family is killed in Cuba, leaving it to you to take the reigns and lead your battered organization and reestablish the Corleone powerbase in Queens. Success breeds opportunity: after you've proven you have the chops to run a top-tier crime organization, Hyman Roth invites you to expand and support him in South Florida. Do you accept his offer or do you remain loyal to the Corleones? Things get even more complicated when Michael Corleone comes under investigation by a Senate Committee on Organized Crime, and you're tapped to run the Family with support from Tom Hagen. Whatever decisions you make, you must build up your arsenal, command your crew, and establish and maintain power... or face the consequences. Stack your pockets with favors from those in positions of influence as you fight off attacks and strike back at your rivals. As the Godfather there will be a price on your hea! d and a target on your back, but don't take it personally. Aft! er all, it's only business.
The Don's View Be a true Don as you coordinate all the action using a 3D world map: survey your turf, place defenses on businesses, analyze crime patterns, identify new illicit rackets, and choose the target of your next attack. As the Don of a family, there are a ton of strategic choices to make in
The Godfather 2. Just one example are Monopolies. Monopolies are groupings of rackets that "run" the same criminal activity. Controlling, and defending a monopoly comes with both a monetary bonus and game perk benefits making them key to owning the map, gaining wealth and amassing power. Monopolies can be local to one city or span across the cities. Larger monopolies made up of many targets, spanning multiple cities are obviously more difficult but offer greater rewards. Other in-game rackets include: Fronts - extortable legitimate businesses of the game that provide payouts as well as money laundering opportunities; and Small, Medium a! nd Large Rackets - venues containing an illegal criminal activity and usually disguised as legitimate businesses. These three require various degrees of muscle to defend and keep under your control.
Key Game Features:
- Build Your Family - Recruit, develop, and promote members of your crime family.
- Command a Crew - Bring up to three crew members along on jobs, including an arsonist, demolitions expert, safecracker, and more. Command their actions in battle and unleash their specialties on your enemies.
- The Don's View - Be a true Don as you coordinate all the action using a 3D world map: survey your turf, place defenses on businesses, analyze crime patterns, identify new illicit racket monopolies, and choose the target of your next attack.
- Blackhand Brutality - Act like a mobster to command respect, intimidating and extorting business owners and rival families with devastating new attacks and execution! s.
- Bring Your Family Online - Recruit your fri! ends to join your family and take them into battle online to find out who is the Don of Dons.
- 'It's Only Business' - Relive the greatest moments from The Godfather II in an open-world action experience inspired by the movie.
Commanding Your Crew There are six ranks within each family, starting with the Don. As the Don you will have a right hand man, your Consigliere Tom Hagen, who will teach you the ropes and advise you on how to take down the other families. The rest of your family is comprised of an Underboss, Capos, Soldiers and Associates. These are the men who guard your interests and follow your orders without question. Members of your family within these ranks, known as Made Men, possess exclusive skills and specialties that can be taken into battle. Direct them wisely and upgrade them to develop their specialties and increase the power of your organization. But beware. Each rival family has it’s own family tree as well. Learning how t! o hunt down and permanently eliminate their Made Men will be critical to your success.
Take Your Family Online in Multiplayer Modes Play
The Godfather II online multiplayer modes and become the true Don of Dons. Take your money, weapons, and crew from your singleplayer experience online and wage mob warfare against players around the world. Play as one of your family’s Made Men and put your best strategies to the test as you battle for riches and honors that transfer back and forth between your singleplayer campaign. Some available modes include:
Fire Starter Game Mode - Arsonist crew members attempt to destroy as much as possible in a race to reach the scoring limit.
Safe Cracker Mode - Safe cracker crew members attempt to find safes throughout the map. Cracking them earns your team points and money.
Demolition Assault Mode - Use your demolitions specialty to destroy the enemy’s three assault points.
Tea! m Deathmatch - The bloodiest mode and so not for the squea! mish. Te am with most kills wins.
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