If you have not seen the first movie you won't understand this one fully. In fact it continues the Corleone story almost without break, with Don Vito's son taking brilliantly the role of his father. A few well inserted flashbacks will help you to understand better the biography of Don Vito thus completing a few aspects the first movie had left in the obscurity. The rest is the usual story of the struggle for power among mafia families but very well told in a captivating way. Which doesn't prevent the director to go on presenting those gangsters like human beings with their family problems interfering sometimes with their criminal activities. Murder is an ordinary event normally used to punish a betrayal but also to attain the gangsters' purposes in the attainment of their businesses. Although the acting lacks the superb performance of a sacred monster like Marlon Brando in the first part of this saga, it's good enough and all players do their parts convincingly well with special prominence to Al Pacino and Diane Keaton.