Indeed GFII is a much heavier meal to digest than GFI; the back and forth of flashbacks are unearthing, the deep psychological insight on how Vito became the Godfather, how Michael manipulates everybody, and trust nobody, and the dilemma between the survival instinct driving the beast, and the mirage of civility that he so desperately seeks...

I must admit, I didn't get it the first time I saw it, I didn't fully get it the second time, but I got everything the third time; to me, there are no plot holes.

There are holes in how we receive the plot, not the plot itself, I believe! The time constraints meant that the plot is not spoon-fed to us, but we must deduct, analyze, and fill-in the gaps - easy to do now with DVD (pause, rewind, listen again), must have been very difficult when it was first released.

To conclude: I like the way the Godfather movies make me work to keep up with the plot; they engage me, involve me, and captivate me through eliminating the complacency of stating the obvious.