Mothra III - King Ghidora kehrt zurück

Right, third Mothra movie in 3 years (1996, 1997 and 1998). It started out alright, but then just got more and more stupid actually.

I am glad to see that the 1998 movie didn't do what the 1997 movie did off of the 1996 movie, which was a blatant copy and paste job. At least the writer, Masumi Suetani, went for a whole new direction with "Mosura 3: Kingu Gidora raishu" (aka "Rebirth of Mothra 3"). So that was good.

But that is where I have to stop for a moment and comment on that different approach, which wasn't all so good after all. In this third movie, Mothra travels back in time to stop King Gidorah. Yeah, time travels. You didn't read that wrong. That was a bit too odd for my liking. Sure, it was original thinking and out-of-the-box. But time travel? Come on...

The movie does have the same level of special effects as the previous two movies, for better or worse. The effects are good enough for the movie, though they bear witness to being aged by today's standards. And you shouldn't be expecting to be blown away by an array of dazzling effects. However, I will say that they upped their game with the appearance of Mothra in this 1998 movie. So that was cool.

And while we are on the special effects; odd how they managed to obtain a good level of effects on Mothra and Gidorah, but the dinosaur effects were just downright laughable and nowhere near being realistic enough to pass as being believable.

The acting in the movie was adequate. Well, you know what you are getting yourself into here with this Kaiju movies. And for some reason the Mothra movies always have children as the main protagonists. And that was also the case in the 1998 "Rebirth of Mothra 3" movie.

"Rebirth of Mothra 3" was enjoyable and entertaining for sure. I just personally wasn't a fan of the time traveling aspect. My rating of this 1998 addition to the Mothra legacy lands on a very mediocre five out of ten stars.

I honestly find this one probably the best of the Mothra trilogy. As any kaiju fan knows, the Mothra trilogy had a rough start and is basically known for two things; annoying child-centered story lines and fantastic monster fights. The series has struggled to balance this out and with this one I think they hit the high point. The story still centers on a child character, but this one is older and for the most part this story has little to no child humor. Still, the human angle of it all is thinly written and not very emotionally strong, greatly weakening the impact of the finale of the trilogy. You would think the writers would bullsh*t and say Ghidorah seeks to absorb the youth of the children or something, but no, he simply gathers them up. This movie is nowhere near the level of something akin to "Godzilla vs. Destroyer" (19950 or "Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys" (1999), two kaiju masterpieces from around the same time period.

What it lacks in character it makes up for in kaiju fun. King Ghidorah, also known as Grand King Ghidorah in this film, looks just stunning. As a fan of the dragon since his debut in "Ghidrah: The Three Headed Monster" in 1964, this is inarguably the greatest rendition of the beast. Never before and never again has the three-headed golden monster looked this terrifying and magnificent. Its younger form, Cretaceous King Ghidorah, also looks quite fearsome. Got to give the Toho effects team props on their work for the monsters in this one. The monster battles in this one are spectacularly done, with Mothra taking quite a beating till the finale of course. If you're a fan of Mothra or not, anyone can enjoy Ghidorah kicking the sh8t out of the giant feminine moth. There are a few short city-stomping scenes in this one, not enough for some fans taste, but this is made up for in the kaiju-brawls. All the monsters look bad-ass here, including the two new Mothra incarnations. Armor Mothra I suppose is Mothra's strongest from ever and after the battle is over appears Eternal Mothra and it's a beautiful design. See this movie, as with the others, for the monsters alone.

That and Toshiyuki Watanabe's score is pretty awesome, capturing the feel of a sci-fi/fantasy film. There's also some fun cheese with the prehistoric battle 130 million years ago while Mothra and Cretaceous King Ghidorah fight. As they do, a T-Rex and a Triceratops actually stare at each other in bewilderment before continuing to watch the battle.

Nowhere near the pinnacle of Japanese monster movies but a fun watch.

I think that this movie is a lot better than the two previous ones. King Ghidora looks perfect, probably the best I've ever seen him. Mothra is of course, my favorite. She looks really cool too, especially in her armored form. There is more city destruction in this movie which is good also. I like the theme to the movie "If your arms can't reach the mind can." The acting in the movie is splendid. The only thing that I think could be improved, is how everything happens. Like, when Mothra throws King Ghidora in the volcano and then he later comes back. Another good thing, is that in this movie they bring out more about Moll, Lora, and Belvera. I really hope they make more movies with Mothra as the star, because she has a great potential to be extremely popular.

Like "The Terminator" in reverse, Mothra travels back in time to preemptively defeat a younger version of Godzilla's greatest foe, the evil three-headed King Ghidora, who we learn from Mothra's two diminutive priestesses that he's responsible for killing all of the dinosaurs and is now planning on killing the children of the world. So Mothra heads back in time to the "Land of the Lost" for kaiju-style fighting to stop Ghidora in a dinosaur-filled landscape. If you enjoy rubber-suited men pounding on each other on miniature sets, you'll very much enjoy this Mothra picture. It's nothing all the special, but for this type of film the special effects are solid, the story is serviceable, and and there was plenty of giant-monster-action. Here's to hoping Part 4 will revolve around Mothra having to get his parents to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance!

This is one of the new REBIRTH OF MOTHRA trilogy films. As I have not seen the other two movies (though I have seen the original 1961 film), I will not say that this is the best of the series, though it probably is. Featuring the D**M COOLEST King Ghidorah design EVER and a look at a baby Ghido, this is cool film! But the dinosaur effects are the worst ever. I mean, they look like crappy-looking moving TOYS! NOTE: This movie is not released in the US.