Mosura 2: Kaitei no daikessen

First, I love the majority of Toho films. All the silly Godzilla flicks from the 70's and so on, but this film is taking it to a new level. Granted, I'll give it a 5 out of 10, but whats the deal with Mothra and all the powers it now has?....AquaMothra?...give me a break. Both creatures had too many different weapons that weren't explained nor seemed to be a dominant in battle. The effects were good, better than most films of this type, but I would have liked to see more land-based battles, because a moth in water doesn't cut it for me. Dagahra was a unique and interesting creature, so hopefully he'll appear again. After seeing the "Rebirth of Mothra", this was kind of a letdown and a little boring at the end. Hopefully Rebirth 3 is better.

Well, why did we need three "Rebirth of Mothra" movies with a year in between one another? Seems a bit excessive and cashing in on the success of the Kaiju genre.

Regardless, I sat down to watch the 1997 movie "Mosura 2: Kaitei no deikessen" (aka "Rebirth of Mothra 2", just shortly after I had sat down to watch the 1996 movie "Rebirth of Mothra". Wait... Something is amiss here. The two movies were almost clones of one another, just with minor changes to them.

In both movies, Mothra is reawakened to come to fight another Kaiju that has been stirred from its slumber. First it was a three-headed reptile, then it was a winged aquatic reptile. Two miniature women ride around on a miniature Mothra and calls forth Mothra from her sleep. A group of children are drawn into the fight against their own wishes.

Yup, the 1997 movie was essentially just a clone of the 1996 movie. And that was a shame. Whereas I enjoyed the 1996 movie, seeing everything again just with a different enemy, different children, and such, didn't really do much to win me over.

That being said, if you haven't seen the 1996 "Rebirth of Mothra" movie, then you will definitely like "Rebirth of Mothra 2" - as they are essentially the same movie. But for us that have seen the previous movie, this was a bit of a shallow cash-in.

But wait, in this 1997 movie Mothra becomes fully submerged in salt water. One would think that a moth and salt water is not the best of combos. But I guess a Kaiju moth is impervious to that and survives it regardless.

There are minor changes between the 1997 and 1996 movie, but not enough to really make the two movies different. A shame really.

This film was almost entirely uninteresting and boring. Throughout the time I was watching it, I considered at least five times changing the channel because I was getting so bored. But I wanted to see the movie for the monsters.

There are several reasons why I dislike this film. And the first and most main reason is the main characters. They're children! Annoying little children! Like in the Showa Gamera films. They really get on my nerves throughout the film, for the movie concentrates mostly on them and not the monsters.

But when there are monster sequences, this film will keep its viewers watching. Like your average Heisei monster film, the battles are pretty good with lots of 'beam-war' action. Maybe this is just a flaw in the English dubbing, but the antagonist, Dagahrah, I pronounced something like "Dagarlah." So, watch this movie only for the monster sequences. But if you didn't like the Heisei Godzilla fights, don't watch this movie at all.

This movie is the first sequel to the first solo effort following the Hesei Godzilla series. Like the first one, this movie is directed toward kids. In this movie, three kids are searching for a treasure of an underwater civilization while Mothra battles an underwater monster called Dagala, who was a product of the civilization. This movie has a very fast pace and some really good special effects. Dagala is an impressive monster as well. However, the special FX crew went way overkill on the monsters' powers. I've never seen so many different types of energy weapons from both combatants. I felt like I was watching a light show instead of kaiju fight sometimes. The underwater Mothra was also too much. This movie also contains some corny scenes (i.e. "jumping" over the chasm and the water slide scene). Overall, this movie is a fast-paced kaiju film with some good special FX and extended fight scenes. However, it does not match the epic quality that the Godzilla series reached.

After kicking the butt of Death Ghidorah, Mothra takes on Dagarah, a creature who was genetically engineered to destroy garbage which went wrong (don't they always?). It's producing starfish-like creatures called Barem, and Mothra's the only one who can stop Dagarah before he destroys the world!

Mothra's more or less the same in this movie (apart from the final battle). The same beam weapons as before, but gets a colour change courtesy of the healing powers of Ghogo.

Dagarah's an odd one. It's original, I'll give it that, but apart from that, it's not a particularly good monster. It's good how Mothra can't touch him, especially when he dives deeper beneath the sea. Apart from that, it's not much good.

AquaMothra is one of the best Mothra forms I've seen. The CGI-fuelled sequence with the multi AquaMothras shooting their beam weapons inside of Dagarah is pretty surreal, but it's meant to be!

Ghogo's one of the most bizarre points of the movie. You can actually see the wire which it's attached to when it bounces! Even more bizarre is its human-healing properties: its urine. I wonder if it's any relation to Trumpy from Pod People, like a mother's niece's friend's friend's sister's person-who-they-met-in-the-mall's cousin's school-friend's pet. Ghogo, you can do magic things! (It's called evil. Or is it more like goofiness?)

I'm not going to talk about the kids. The Elias are not much different. Moll's still determined to stop the creature and Belvera, where Lora is still the unsure, emotional one. Belvera doesn't get much screentime, and when she does, it's in the company of those two nimrods she hired. Garu Garu's back, but its more mechanised this time. When Mothra lifts Dagarah out of the water when it's been killed (or something like it) the princess says something, Mothra's tractor-beam loses hold, and DAGARAH LANDS ON THE TEMPLE, COMPLETELY OBLITERATED!!! Was that meant to happen?

At the end of the movie, there should have been a prelude to MOSURA 3 with King Ghidorah heading towards Earth....