Mosura 2: Kaitei no daikessen

The sequel to the 1996 "Rebirth of Mothra" and like its predecessor it is a mixed bag. In all technical reasoning, this movie's characters suck more ass than the first one's. For some odd reason, the writers thought it was a good idea to mimic the 60s Gamera movies and center the film on child characters. Thing is, 60s Gamera sucked ass, so how was it in any way a good idea? In doing so the human angle is entirely botched from the start, and ruins the movie's remote chance of standing up to Godzilla. It's even more painful in the dubbed version, so please, if you can and at all just stay away from the English dubbed DVD. That means you Sony.

It's a real shame, considering almost every other aspect is done quite well. Mothra Leo is a beautiful rendition of the giant moth, and Dagahra is an impressive foe, looking pretty bad ass. The fight scenes are pretty well executed, although there's some over kill with Mothra and all those laser beams. The temple of Ninai Kanai itself is an awesome miniature and there's actually city destruction in this one. And composer Toshiyuki Watanabe is no Akira Ifukube, but the score is well done and I have to admit some moments were made truly awesome because of it. And let's not forget the final battle where (Aqua) Mothra delivers the bad-ass final blow. I enjoyed the monster scenes and special effects quite a bit, but when the monsters are not on screen I get annoyed.

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 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.

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.

I thought this was a really enjoyable movie, though aimed very much at kids. It reminded me of the old-style Gamera flicks, but with an important difference: the kid-heros behaved much more like real children than the insufferable brats of 60's monster movies.

However, my adult-brain has some reservations about it. Most of all, I found the inevitable "what I learned from the Monster" message appalling: the kids suggest it's best not to know too much, and much better to stay uninformed and let God straighten everything out. That's probably not the interpretation the film-makers wanted, but I thought that was what came across, loud and clear.

Another problem -- less serious and actually kind of endearing -- is the poverty of the special effects. Oh, don't get me wrong: some of the effects are first rate, especially those involving Mothra's transformations; and the matte shots are way ahead of the first "Mothra" (1996), where I found myself thinking of bad 70's sci-fi. But I've never seen more visible wire-work outside of a Full Moon picture. Otherwise impressive shots of Dagahrla streaking through the skies are ruined by the obvious cables running from its back. Then there's the Gogo, that bizarre Furby-like creature that creates miracles by peeing on things... even when you can't see the wire attached to his head, you just KNOW it's there.

Much more fun and far less ponderous than some of the later Godzilla flicks, this movie will appeal to anyone who has a lingering affection for the old Gamera movies, shortcomings and all. Just try not to think about it too much...