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 had bit of a frustration about these '90s Mothra movies. That its special effects could be little more realistic etc. But now I think about it, these movies were kicking a** with bigger and brighter than life cinematography and plot when everything in our world was turning towards darkness (if you think about all the sci-fi, super hero movies that came out in the '90s and how dark they were). Here finally someone had a plot where motivation for destruction was not anger, but force of nature is trying to stop another force of nature from causing catastrophe.

I just think these movies are great because it depicts another world that isn't like ours but brighter and people living in it is brighter too. Topics of Mothra series was more geared towards the world than say like Batman, where it was just about Bruce, his personal issues and few bad guys. Mothra series was talking about things like destruction of nature, and value of our children.

When everything around us was getting darker, it's a real treat to throw these bigger and brighter than life movie up on the screen and just kick back for 90 minutes.

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.

Rebirth of Mothra III (1998) is a movie that I recently found on a random streaming service. The storyline follows King Ghidora arriving and terrifying Earth. Meanwhile a group of children have also been trapped and need to be rescued. Mothra tries to stop King Ghidora and badly fails. It is determined the only way to stop King Ghidora is for Mothra to go back in time and kill King Ghidora when he was a child.

This movie is directed by Okihiro Yoneda (Rebirth of Mothra I) and stars Miyuki Matsuda (Audition), Atsushi Ohnita (Hideyoshi) and Tsutomu Kitagawa (Godzilla 2000: Millennium).

This is easily the best best film in the Mothra modern trilogy. The storyline, special effects and villain (King Ghidora) were all outstanding. King Ghidora is very well done, the dome used to hold the children is entertaining and the miniature monsters are well created. The biggest issue with this picture is the terrible CGI. The premise had a lot of potential but the CGI kind of ruins it. I will say the monster battles are excellent and a must see for fans of the monster universe.

Overall, this is the best modern Mothra film that I would score a 6/10 and recommend seeing once.