And that's the key. The reason I find Michael so attractive is because he (Pacino) is ... well, so attractive.

Too bad he couldn't look that way (the way he did in GF I or II, I'll take either ) forever.

There were and are plenty of handsome actors in Hollywood, but none are so fascinating that I can watch them over and over again as I can Al Pacino in the Michael role. It certainly was a marriage of the right role with the right actor, and ... BOOM ... magic! A lot of Michael's appeal -- his soft-spoken voice, his eyes, his posture, his looks -- are things Pacino brought to the table. Other attractive aspects of Michael were created by the script -- the way he calls Kay "darling," his seriousness, his intelligence, the way he kisses his little boy goodnight, the way he protects Kay while bullets are flying through their bedroom -- but they wouldn't be the same without Pacino bringing them to life.

And, yes, he has great eyes. That's one of the things I find myself concentrating on when the camera is on him. They even look beautiful when they're closed and you can see the long eye lashes (as when his eyes are downcast when he hears Fredo's slip up about knowing Johnny Ola). You can also really see the lashes when he's in profile (look for the scene where he tucks in Anthony at bedtime).

Lavinia, the rest of your post is so poetic. I don't know if I feel sympathy for Michael at the end, but a lot of people do. I feel more of a sense of poetic justice: He got what he deserved for his life of crime. But I do take pity on him. He had so much potential to be good. As you said, he was not 100% villain. We all have a dark side and a moral side, a capacity to do evil and a capacity to do good. For most of us, I think, our dark side is buried quite deeply. It's a pity that Michael allowed his dark side to dominate him.