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Rebirth of Mothra!

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Rebirth Of Mothra – 1996, Okihiro Yoneda – Japan

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Everybody’s favorite giant ass, benevolent bug monster returns in this much-better-than-you’d-expect solo outing from the heart of the 1990’s, A.K.A.; The Heisei Period. It’s weird, by and large, Godzilla’s career in the this era hasn’t been all peaches and popsicles, in fact, some of those movies downright suck like crazy… but so far, based on the strength of this movie, Mothra is doing substantially better. I guess it’s too early to judge, though, this did end up being a trilogy, so we’ll see how well our big, furry bug buddy holds up three movies deep.

THE PLOT ~ Taiki and his sister Wakaba don’t get along. Neither do their parents, dad works long hours overseeing the logging/mindless destruction of precious natural sites, for the purpose of building parking lots, torture chambers, or slaughterhouses, presumably, and their mother stays home all day fabricating reasons to be angry at people, mostly their father, because fuck that guy. Then we have the two tiny, singing fairy ladies who live on Infant Island and serve as stewards to Mothra; their roles have been greatly expanded upon in this film, and in many ways drastically altered. In the past, these characters have been relatively singular in personality, lacking individual characteristics and instead operating in a more enigmatic, ethereal manner. In the case of Rebirth Of Mothra, they are now given individual personalities and names, Mona and Lora, respectively, and they no longer are of one mind on everything. In fact, they occasionally disagree. Additionally, these two decades old characters have also gained a third sister, Belvera, who is basically Rita Repulsa, but five inches tall. She’s the bad guy here, she rides on a little dragon. Full disclosure; I like Belvera.

So, one day, dad, who, again, works all the time, fuck that guy, right? He’s never home, he’s always off working really hard to pay for our groceries, the kids’ college fund, our mortgage, all our bills- What a dick! Anyway. He and his stalwart crew of Earth-murdering land developers happen upon a mysterious ancient site, which, unbeknownst to them, is the enchanted prison of a giant, gnarly dragon monster. Pops, again, thinking only of himself, pries a tiny, circular seal off of this archeological treasure with the intent of gifting it to his daughter Wakaba, but again, what a dick, in so doing, he weakens the prisons hold on Desghidorah, the aforementioned dragon, and it’s now only a matter of time before this beast busts loose. Desghhidorah is kind of cool, it basically looks like a grey, quadrapedal version of longtime Godzilla arch-villain King Ghidorah. They must be related.

So, dad returns home to the angry, frozen embrace of his eternally dissatisfied wife and gives the seal to his daughter as a necklace, which, unbeknownst to mom and dad, makes her the target of Belvera, who is super excited about setting Desghidorah free… For some reason. She hate people, I guess. Lora and Mona intervene, and they end up dogfighting with Belvera in a miniature moth/dragon aerial shootout that would be a lot cooler if the CG in ’96 wasn’t so PBS looking. Long story short, Belvera gets away with the seal, which is now a magical amulet, and sets Desighidorah loose. Lora and Mona summon Mothra, who is getting on in years, and she flaps her giant, furry groove thing on over to face an opponent that seems laughably more intimidating than she is. Mothra is, in turn, rewarded with a furious ass kicking, as she so often has been throughout her life.

In all the fury and dragon lasers, Mothra’s offspring, somehow sensing momma moth’s distress, busts forth from it’s egg prematurely, and wiggles it’s tiny larval form off to her rescue. Unrealistically, this infant caterpillar arrives at the scene of the battle more of less instantly, and attacks Desighidorah in a truly valiant fashion, only to then be deal a most savage beat-down in return which nearly kills it. Momma Mothra and her little Larva somehow escape with their lives, but as soon as they’re clear from the immediate threat of three-headed dragon attack, Mother Moth-Monster dies anyway, and sinks dramatically into the ocean. This is meant to be a a real emotional beat in the film, and it’s sort of embarrassing how effective that is. You really have to remind yourself that it’s a damn puppet in a swimming pool and not an actual guardian monster sacrificing her life for her offspring, but even so, you may get a little bummed out.

So, baby Mothra cocoons into a fully developed Moth monster, beats Desigidora’s ass, saves the day, and somewhere between fighting to save one another and baring witness to the glorious splendor of monster combat, the Goto family finds themselves closer than they have been in years, and all old grievances are forgotten, because, as I learned in couples counseling, “the family that survives a dragon attack together, stays together.”

So, there are a couple themes at play here, and none of them are subtle. The first, and most important (in the scheme of the film) is the importance of family, and the healing of strained familiar relationships. This is showcased most plainly in our central characters, the Goto family, and then repeated in the sisterhood of Lora, Mona and Belvera, and then again between Mothra and her offspring. The message of Rebirth of Mothra isn’t the least bit cynical, it is one of forgiveness and compassion, but the movie also has a three headed dragon that fights a caterpillar in it, so don’t be too turned off by its touchy-feeling nature.

The other theme is that of environmental conservation, which is secondary to the family unit theme, yet still extremely heavy handed and blatant. The movie is so Pro-Environmentalism that Al Gore keeps it in a secret drawer that his wife doesn’t know about, for night’s when he’s home alone and feeling frisky. Even so, if you aren’t especially into the whole “conservation thing,” it doesn’t go so over the top that it’s obnoxious, like Avatar does.. If you made it through that chore, you can make it through Rebirth of Mothra, piece of cake.

From a technical standpoint, Rebirth of Mothra is a mixed bag, but it’s still better than most of Godzilla’s recent pictures. What we have here are a bunch of practical effects which are mostly really good, and and a bunch of CGI that sucks really badly. There is one area where Rebirth of Mothra shines like the Arc of the Covenant, though; and that’s its pyrotechnics, holy shit, there are so, so, so many explosions in this movie, and they actually look super awesome. This is what I thought a Kiss concert was going to be like before I ever saw one. There are flames launching every direction, blasts of light exploding out of the Earth- I would normally discourage people from being all that charmed by what amounts to little more than a sophisticated fireworks display in a feature film, but whoever is responsible for these righteous fireball effects deserves a serious raise. Good job dude. How many moth puppets got scorched beyond usability during this shoot? It had to have been dozens.

There is also some pretty good photography, particularly in the third act, and for the most part, I was surprised how good Rebirth of Mothra ended up being. Really, the biggest issue you may have with the film is that, unlike the Heisei era Godzilla films, many of which took on a darker tone and more mature themes, this solo Mothra film is undeniably aimed at a younger audience. In fact, this is a kid’s movie- and that’s clear as day, my friend. For some of you, I expect that disqualifies it altogether- but if I was a kid I would love this thing. Even as an adult I really enjoyed it, I feel like it closely captured the spirit of Toho’s Showa era films, and the changes made to Mothra lore didn’t particularly turn me off- Toho has often shown little regard for continuity in the first place.

Highly recommended for younger audiences, especially those who dig on some of the Hero Godzilla films of the 60’s and 70’s, and actually, I would recommend this anyone who likes kaiju films at all. Lighten up, everybody, Rebirth Of Mothra is a good time!

A-

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Godzilla Vs Mothra AKA Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth!

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Godzilla Vs Mothra AKA Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth– 1992, Takao Okawara – Japan

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So… If “MOTHra” is a MOTH… Then “BATtra” is a bat?

Nope! Battra is also a damn moth. Sorry, suckers. That would have been cool, though.

Anyway…

After the painfully convoluted Godzilla VS King Ghidorah, a time travel movie that doesn’t understand time travel, we have Godzilla VS Mothra– a much more streamlined, point A to point B story, with no time travel and no frumpy ginger androids. Hooray!

Godzilla VS Mothra is another environmental fable style Godzilla flick, and this time they really play up the spiritual aspects of Mothra that have been touched on and/or implied in past movies. In this film, Mothra’s role has been redefined as a quasi ethereal guardian monster, one of the tools the Earth uses to maintain balance. Mothra and Co. become representations of Nature, and are presented as above our subjective concepts of morality, instead serving as mechanisms for a more universal, inarguable form of natural justice. As such, even when they make the hard choices that seem difficult to we feeble humans, they are still framed as being “The good guys,” because that’s just how it has to be. Therefore, Godzilla, by default, slides into his role as “the bad guy,” and represents science, hubris, and the tragically meddlesome nature of the human race. It’s sort of funny, at this point in the franchise, Toho has really turned on science in general. It’s hard to imagine the same Futurist attitude seen in Son Of Godzilla or Destroy All Monsters belonging to the same franchise as GVM; and by this point the series appears to advocate an almost neopaganist return to nature and spiritualism, something eerily in step with the Neopaganist movement in Europe at that time. Those same sentiments exist today, so if anything Godzilla VS Mothra is more meaningful now than it ever was.

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THE PLOT- Meet Taukya Fujita- the Japanese Indianna Jones! As a rugged, “Devil May Care” tomb raider/scoundrel, Takuya’s adventurer’s spirit gives him the wherewithal to survive inhospitable jungles and dodge ancient booby traps, as well as child support payments! That’s right, Takuya has totally and completely skipped out on raising his daughter, a fact brought to our attention when he is sprung out of jail by his babymomma Masako, as well as by a sniveling, spineless yes-man called Kenji. The two represent some giant Japanese land developing corporation, and they need Takuya’s help investigating an island owned by their employers. Although Masako resents Takuya for his failures as a parent, she knows him to be a capable jungle adventurer, and she bites the bullet and puts her feelings aside for the near-term. Taykua, however, is predictably scoundrel-like in his behavior, yet he eventually agrees to help, and so the three set out to Infant Island, who fans of the Showa Godzilla films will remember as the island where Mothra lives. I think the plan was that both parents should leave for this dangerous island, so that that way if anything happened, their child would be left orphaned. It’s a “put all your eggs in one basket and then ship that basket to a dangerous island” strategy. SPEAKING OF EGGS; that’s what they discover on infant island, Mothra’s egg. It seems that a recent meteorite impact along a fault line in the ocean triggered landslides and Earthquakes which had uncovered Mothra’s egg, as well as the egg of Battra; an evil, spikier, cooler moth monster. Although Infant Island is uninhabited (or is it?), ancient cave paintings are discovered by our team, and from these they learn about Mothra and Battra, two sides of the same monster coin, destined to bring balance to the force, or the Earth, or whatever. They also encounter the two tiny women of Infant Island, Mothra staples from past Toho films.

The tiny ladies tell us a little bit more about the situation at hand. Apparently, they are called “Cosmos,” and are actually ancient creatures from space. Sounds about right. Also, the Earth is hurting and we’re mean to it or whatever. Whatever, Cosmos- Hey, you guys, I know; let’s yank this giant egg out the Earth and see if we can make money off it somehow! So, that’s what they do.

Mothra’s egg never makes it to Japan, however. That same meteorite that shook up Infant Island also woke up and pissed off Godzilla, and he’s eager to let everyone know how giant and angry he is. From here, we have a three way monster confrontation stretched out over the rest of the film. Battra shows up, and he/she/it is pretty darn cool. Initially, Mothra and Battra are at each others throats, until Godzilla intervenes and appears poised to slay Battra. Mothra saves Battra’s life, and after some weird, tender kaiju moth exchanges which we can never hope to understand and probably wouldn’t want to if we could, Battra and Mothra reconcile, accepting one another’s role as being crucial to the survival of the Earth. They then team up and kick Godzilla’s ass. This metaphor is repeated, and solidified, through the reconciliation of Takuya and Masako, who patch things up and accept that their duties as parents to their daughter supersede their own selfish ambitions. Following this metaphor through to finish, this makes the daughter a representation of the Earth, and at the end of Godzilla Versus Mothra, mankind pledges to be less of a shit head in our role as stewards of our planet. I’m sure that lasted like, a week, then we steam rolled Tibet to make way for a parking structure.

So, the central metaphor for Godzilla VS Mothra is fairly well pronounced, and the composition is solid. Beyond this, we have a mixed bag of ups and downs, but over all the film is pretty good. I think I’m going to list this.

THE GOOD

  • Battra is a cool, interesting new character. He might seem more original than he actually is, given that he’s just an evil Mothra doppelgänger, but he still feels like an expansion of the Mothra universe, and not just a retred.
  • Our human characters are enjoyable, especially Takuya.
  • The more spiritual/cosmic angle on Mothra feels appropriate, and it solidifies Mothra as being distinct and unique next to her kaiju colleagues.
  • This is the first time Mothra looked like she could actually put up a decent fight against Godzilla.

THE BAD

  • The monsters don’t really look very good. Godzilla’s once rubbery hyde now looks too shiny and plastic, as do the other monsters. They look more like something your kid would play on in a McDonald’s Playplace, and their motions look jerky and robotic.
  • The movie could stand to have a little more monster action.

Over all, a pretty good entry for the Heisei series.

B+

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Godzilla Versus The Sea Monster!

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Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster, AKA Ebirah: Horror of the Deep ~ 1966, Jun Fukuda – Japan

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Immediately following Invasion of Astro Monster, which was perhaps Godzilla at his most recycled, we have Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, one of the freshest films in the series up to this point. Thanks, Toho, and not a minute too soon!
For Ebirah, we have a new director, Jun Fukuda, and his style is a serious breath of fresh air. While I would never want for this to sound like a dismissal of Ishiro Honda’s remarkable talents, I will say that there is certainly enough room under the kaiju umbrella for more than one voice at the helm of the Godzilla franchise, and if there was ever a time that new blood was needed, it was right around 1966. The movie also moves the action from Japan’s cities and countryside to a remote, tropical island, and this shift in setting only further accents just how off the badly beaten path this film was to the series at that time.

THE PLOT- Although his brother’s ship has been lost at sea, Ryota is utterly convinced that he is somehow alive. He’s so convinced, actually, that he ends up hijacking a boat and dragging three total strangers, one of whom is a damn bank robber, on a fool-hearty adventure to find and rescue his lost sibling, and the group wastes no time becoming shipwrecked themselves when they are attacked by a huge, lobster type monster named Ebirah, leaving them stranded on the shores of a mysterious island.

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As the four soon come to realize, this island is controlled by a secretive paramilitary organization called The Red Bamboo, who have been using kidnapped natives from Infant Island as slave labor. Word of advice to the world’s paramilitary organizations; if you intend to kidnap islanders for slave labor, maybe pick a group that can’t pray to a giant, flying guardian monster to save them. I really hoped you’d use better judgment, guys.

Through their jungle adventures, our boys pick up a fifth friend, a female from Infant Island, and also discover Godzilla snoozing aggressively in a giant pile of boulders in one of the islands caves. Long story slightly less long, they wake up Godzilla, and shit get’s smashed. It’s really great!

godzilla-vs-sea-monsterI imagine that Ebirah would be Godzilla’s most delicious foe.

First, let’s talk about what Fukuda does that rocks my business so hard- his directorial style feels much more in line with the youthful bounce of 60’s beach cinema than Honda’s classical, 50’s screen aesthetic. While Honda’s work is tops, Fukuda’s feels great, too, and it really works in Ebirah. Here we have a noticeably more dynamic use of composition and moving camera, we have occasional zooms and dolly’s, even some dutch angles. The monster encounters are, in my opinion, drastically improved by this new, more dramatic use of camera, with angles shifting from claustrophobic close ups which stress the size of these beasts, to frantic, sometimes first person perspectives used in the fights between Godzilla and Ebirah. At one point, Godzilla’s fire breath is belched directly into the camera- I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve seen that in this series, correct me if I’m wrong. This might be a controversial statement, but I feel that Fukuda’s use of camera in Ebirah is more effective when dealing with monsters which we are supposed to believe are enormous than what I’ve seen in previous Hondra directed outings, and I can’t remember being as impressed by the visuals in one of these movies since the first Godzilla film back in ’54.

The music undergoes a shift, as well. Akira Ifukube always brought a strange, Japanese folk inspired Bushido dirge to the series, but for this film we have a new composer, Masaru Sato, and, like Fukuda, he brings things up to date with a bouncier, zanier beach pop sound, and even some traces of surf rock guitar. I think it works, and it certainly adds to the film’s upbeat tone. Again, no disrespect meant, Ifukube is an absolute master and his work in the Godzilla franchise cannot be praised enough, but right now, we needed something new, and we got it. As a result, this movie benefits, and so does the audience.

On the setting: The tropical island thing isn’t totally unseen in these Toho kaiju pictures, but ordinarily, the action is always moved back to Japan and out of these remote locations. Not so with Ebirah, here, that’s where the meat of the story sits, and the implications of this give us a very different film. By removing the inevitably of city smashing and innocent casualties that are unavoidable when Godzilla thrashes around well populated areas, he is here free to stomp bad guys exclusively, and in this way he can continue his path toward becoming a more heroic figure, something Toho seemed interested in pursuing at this time. It’s also a lot more cooperative with the notion of the film being more fun and less dark, which it absolutely is. Hell, the Godzilla/Ebirah battle scene starts off with a rousing game of monster volleyball, and then leads into some Dick Dale guitar/submarine beast throw down type stuff, I’d have to think that Fukuda went into this wanting us to have a positive experience.

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And I think you will. Only the stodgiest of Godzilla traditionalists would throw up their arms in protest of Fukuda’s treatment of Big Green, and my guess is most of those people died in the theater back in ’98 when Roland Emmerich’s American ‘Zilla film premiered, so we shouldn’t hear too many objections to this glowing review. Or will we?!?

A

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Mothra Versus Godzilla!!!!

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Mothra Versus Godzilla (AKA Godzilla Versus The Thing) -1964, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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The Godzilla franchise has displayed an impressive disinterest in continuity from early on. We see that reflected here in Mothra Versus Godzilla, a good, but not great, Kaiju romp from Ishiro Honda, director of the far better Mothra, and Gojira, and like, a million other movies also.

Mothra Versus Godzilla has a highly recycled plot; little more than a rehashing of Mothra and King Kong Versus Godzilla smooshed together. The characters are likable enough, however, the effects range from decent to good, and the art direction is also fairly well done. The film somehow feels cheaper than some of it’s predecessors, though, and it suffers from some less than top notch monster throwdown sequences.

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THE PLOT- So, nobody remembers Mothra. You know, that bug the size of a skyscraper that decimated cities, destroyed famous landmarks and took countless lives like, two weeks ago? Yeah, I know, who can keep up on current events these days… So, anyways, when a typhoon washes an enormous egg up onto a beach in Japan, nobody thinks twice about turning it into a tourist attraction. This egg, we come to learn, belongs to Mothra, and her two tiny singing fairy girls show up to try to negotiate it’s return. Nothin’ doin’, the egg is now in the clutches of a couple of no good, money grubbin’ tycoon types, and they know they can make like, mad yen off that shit, so the fairies return to their island home eggless.

Well, it’s about that time that Godzilla shows up, fresh from his apparent loss to King Kong, so he’s all riled up and looking to reestablish himself as the king of smashing. Shameless, our three Japanese main characters (who I intend to talk about as little as possible) head off to Infant Island (That’s where Mothra lives) to try and ask for help. Eventually, this help is granted, the monsters fight, and the movie is over.

It’s not horribly exciting. The human characters are passable, but nothing special. They essentially come across as less developed, less likable clones of the three human characters from Mothra, with two of them being journalists, and one being a scientist (The actor playing the scientist is even the same guy in both films; franchise favorite Hiroshi Koizumi.)

The worst thing we have here is that the monster fights aren’t that great. Let’s face it, I love Mothra, but her offensive capabilities just aren’t up to par with Big Green. Throughout the franchise, there are various instances of Mothra pledging to “save mankind” or “protect mankind” from Godzilla, and honestly, who are they kidding? The fight between Godzilla and Mothra is something else, she just kinda flaps around him, blows things at him with her wings, drags him around a little, it just looks like she’s pestering the shit out of him. Nothing looks, painful, he does not look as though he is incurring any injuries, he just looks super, super annoyed and probably really wishes it would stop. Mothra doesn’t defeat Godzilla, but it really looks like he’s having a lousy afternoon.

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Damn, he hates it.

It get’s worse; after she pisses him off and irritates the hell out of him, she just flies off, lands somewhere, and then dies, because her short insect lifespan has come to it’s natural end… So… Not the most climactic end to a monsters life, but that’s what happens (I’m not kidding that’s exactly what happens). So, Godzilla, now nowhere close to defeated, continues his raid on Japan, probably really upset and confused by what just happened to him, and people flip out.

So, what now? After that, the egg hatches, just like it always does, and two larvae emerge- just like they always do. The two little rolli-poli critters, now less than an hour old, are immediately expected to face off against the ultimate destructive force on the planet, which was born of a union between the second and fourth most destructive forces on the planet. (Second most destructive force; Atomic weapons. Fourth most destructive force; dinosaurs. The third most destructive force is Wilford Brimley.)

If you thought the Mothra/Godzilla fight was less than pulse pounding, this one is infinitely worse. The two larvae basically wiggle on over, find little hidey holes, and then just poke out their giant caterpillar faces and spray Godzilla with a stream of cocoon webbing from the safety of their sniper dens. They spray Godzilla, he flails around, they keep spraying, flail, spray, flail, spray, this goes on for some time. Finally, a fully cocooned Godzilla bumbles over and falls into the ocean. Victory? Okay… If Godzilla is no longer visible, apparently that means he’s done for now. Not really that exciting, Toho, but okay.

So, the movie is still really fun, but it really looks like the franchise is starting to lose some of it’s magic right about now. Luckily they’d go on to recapture it with varying degrees of success with a long line of sequels.

C+

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MOTHRA!!!!

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Mothra ~ 1961, Ishiro Honda – Japan

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When I was a child, I liked Mothra okay, but she was easily my least favorite giant monster… And my list of “giant monsters” was not short. Somehow, a giant bug failed to capture my interest the same way a giant, immortal, radioactive dinosaur with laser breath could (back thenI gave no shits about the understated.)  I know I saw Mothra as a kid, but the odds are that I payed little attention to it. Now, as an adult, I have gone back and re-watched it for the first time, and Mothra is really excellent. It’s a film that feels distinct and fresh, but still able to fit in nicely with it’s kaiju contemporaries. The characters are all likable, the story is entertaining, and the more spiritual feel is a welcome departure from the norm. Mothra ranks among my favorite Toho films at the time.

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THE PLOT: An expedition is launched to investigate mysterious reports of natives living on Infant Island, a Polynesian island thought to have been uninhabited, and which had been exposed to radiation durring atomic testing in the Pacific. The expedition is made up of both scientists from Japan, and also Rolisica, a fictional nation looking to be something of an amalgam of the United States and the Soviet Union. Upon reaching Infant Island, natives are indeed discovered, as well as two creatures with the appearance of small, humanoid females.

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They’re like, seven inches tall? Small as hell.

Some evil Rolisican dude named Nelson snatches them up and takes them back to civilization with the fine idea of making some money off of them, much to the chagrin of our three main characters, because they’re the good guys. Long story short, the natives of Infant Island are pissed that we took their tiny ladies away, so they pray for Mothra to hatch and retrieve them. Mothra does hatch, and the rest of the film is a balance of trying to survive her onslaught, and trying to steal back the ladies from Nelson and get them home.

Mothra is a giant moth also, in case anyone didn’t know this.

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There she is!

The film deals with ethical questions of exploitation (both resources and human lives), international tensions, greed and commercialization, and more spiritual notions of global unity in a way that doesn’t line up with the perspective of other Toho flicks. In King Kong versus Godzilla, natives are exploited, but we aren’t really told that this is wrong, so much as that it’s just something we can do if we want. Mothra is a more humanistic film. It’s also very well put together, and quite enjoyable.

Maybe my favorite thing about this film is this dude;

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On the right.

Furanki Sakai, who plays Senichiro ‘Sen-chan’ Fukuda, AKA “The Bulldog,” according to IMDB. In the subtitles on the version I watched, he was called Zen “The Snapping Turtle.” No matter what name/nickname combination is used in the version you see, Sakai is kicking out the jams. His character is believable, funny, likably, ballsy, and brave, he’s what I would maybe call a “lovable bad ass.” Honestly, he’s possibly my favorite human character in a Kaiju film ever; the only other known contender at this point being Don Frye’s Captain Gordon from Godzilla: Final Wars. Sakai’s character kinda feels like Lou Costello, if Lou Costello could also kick ass on occasion.

Another matter of note: The natives of Infant Island are apparently intended to be Polynesians, but the actors all appear to be Japanese people in black face. This same phenomena also appears in 1962’s King Kong Vs Godzilla, and it’s totally weird.

Mothra is really great, though.

A+

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