Godzilla vs Mothra (1992)
Plot Summary
The Earth is headed for disaster and when an archeological research team visits Infant Island to find out why, they discover two tiny women who reveal that the Earth is fighting back for all the harm humans have done here and sends out the evil Battra to destroy us. The Cosmos, as the girls are called, offer their help by calling Mothra to battle the creature. Unfortunately, Godzilla also appears and a three way battle begins that threatens to destroy Japan.
That pretty much sums up the movie though there are some loose ends which I will pick up right now. This is essentially a modernized update of the classic 1964 film but with a stronger environmental theme to it. I really like how they took the elements from the original and shuffled things around to make it more appealing. The story revolves around Takuya ( Tetsuya Bessho) who is essentially an Indiana Jones type though a thief. In fact, just after the opening sequence of a meteorite smashing into the Earth and causing Mothra's egg to be unearthed we see Takuya grabbing an ancient artifact out of a temple and we get a ripoff of the opening sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark! Anyways Takuya is thrown in Jail by the authorities but is then recruited by an environmental research team with the cooperation of the Murotamo Corporation which is involved in developing different areas of Japan with less than ethical environmental standards. Andoh, the representative of the company will go along on the expedition. The other person involved in the expedition is Masako (
Satomi Kobayashi) who just happens to be Takuya's ex-wife.
So this is the basic setup as they go to Infant Island in search of Mothra's egg. In this version Infant island is uninhabited and the scenes of the three going through the jungle and such has a very Romancing the Stone or other similar films feel to it. Thankfully, there is very little in the way of stupid humor as the comedy in these scenes is quite understated and it comes from the bickering between Takuya and Masako.
As i've said this movie has a tighter focus on the environmental message so while the trio is off on their hunt we see some crazy stuff happening as the evil twin of Mothra, Battra comes to life and is heading to Japan to cause destruction. Godzilla also emerges and the first battle of the movie sees Godzilla attacking Mothra's egg as the trio finds it and takes the Cosmos girls along with the egg back to Japan. Eventually the egg hatches and Mothra comes out in her larva form being attacked by Godzilla. Battra as I said, comes along and starts going at it with Godzilla which allows Mothra after being badly beaten to swim back to Infant Island.
The fight between Godzilla and Battra is some pretty great stuff as Godzilla is being attacked by Battra's electrical beams and such. The fight gets so unruly that they end up going underwater as Battra continues to bombard the Big G. Godzilla then starts to use his nuclear breath and it's on like donkey kong! Eventually though a volcanic fissure opens up in the waters and they fall into it.
So essentially the trio take the Cosmos girls to spread their message of how humanity is ruining the Earth's life force etc etc. That's when Andoh kidnaps the girls and the Murotamo corporation boss declares that he owns them and that they'll do his bidding. The girls get free from them eventually and sing their song to get Mothra to come save them.
This is basically when the plot is ignored for the most part and it turns into a full on monster battle for the rest of the movie. Oh, the human story is advanced a bit, there's the story of how Takuya and Masako have to overcome problems due to him deciding to kidnap the Cosmos girls for himself to sell to some American interests for a million bucks. Eventually Masako, their daughter (a really annoying kid) and the psychic teen Miki Saegusa from earlier movies discover where Takuya and the Cosmos girls are. We get this very contrived, cutesy scene where the daughter is all "I don't want my daddy to be a thief. You have to help Mothra" crap which of course ends up being the prevailing wisdom and takuya comes to his senses. So the Cosmos girls tell Mothra that they are ok and to stop rampaging Japan. That's when Mothra gets ambushed by the military who bombard her with all kinds of ordinance.
This leads to one of the most visually arresting sequences in the whole movie as Mothra goes and rams up against the Diet Building (Japanese Parliament) and begins her transformation to butterfly/moth stage. The music combined with the dusk setting as Mothra shoots out her webs to cocoon herself in is poetic and just beautiful to watch. Words can't do justice to how wonderful of a scene that was.
At this point in time Godzilla has somehow survived the volcano and traveled under the Earth's mantle and through Mt. Fuji to cause all kinds of mayhem on Japan. Godzilla basically trashes the whole place with buildings being destroyed and all sorts of electricity being blown up. Battra also survived the battled and is heading to Japan as well and this all leads up to an insanely good though overlong final battle between Godzilla vs Mothra then Mothra taking on Battra but at first flying around and being chased so as to put the battle somewhere less populated and then you have Godzilla kicking Battra's ass only to see Mothra defend him and they both take on Godzilla and save Japan.
As I said, this was a great final battle. I really enjoyed the chase sequences as you got a great view of the area at night and the empty carnival area with the ferris wheel where they all battle each other was a great location for such a fight. Seeing Mothra pulling out all the stops and using her um, sparkly dust thing to make Godzilla's attack reflect back on him was very cool to see. Like in the original movie we see Mothra and Battra deciding to work together to take down the threat that is Godzilla and the "talking" between the two was done quite well. You really got a sense of what was going on in the minds of all 3 monsters. The problem though, is that these battle sequences which bridge together to form one mega battle scene is about a half hour long with ZERO interruption except to see the faces of the human characters reacting to the mayhem. It's just a bit on the overdone side and makes it a little tedious by the end.
Still, all things considered as an update to the original film and more importantly, the design and SFX work with the Kaiju makes this a must see. The human element especially in the first half of the movie was quite good. The bickering between Takuya and Masako gives it almost a romantic comedy feel and the swipes at Spielberg and his type of movies in the '80s was a nice touch as well. I give this *** stars.
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