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.

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.

The sequel to Rebirth of Mothra is surprisingly much more

entertaining. The cast is a lot better, and a lot less pointless.

The sets are pretty cool and much more interesting then the first

one. The plot is pretty much a typical kaiju plot, with the same

Captain Planet stuff the first one had. The new monster, Dagahra, is

pretty cool, too.

One of the main things that killed Rebirth of Mothra was the human

interaction and how pointless it was. Thankfully, this one has a lot

better and a lot less pointless human interaction. The main

characters are still kids, but they're a lot less annoying then the

ones from the first one. There's also more for them to do, and no

blank stares! It's a lot more like the usual kaiju plot and it helps

make the movie more entertaining.

Another thing that was kind of boring with Rebirth was the sets. It

was pretty much just forest. This is a lot more interesting, with a

city being demolished, and a bunch of cool water scenes, as well as a

great looking ancient pyramid that comes out of the water. The

inside of the pyramid is a bunch of corridors that are like part Last

Crusade and part Stargate.

The plot is a typical kaiju/Captain Planet one. Humans do bad

things, like polluting the oceans; monster comes to wreak havoc for

it. The little twin faerie girls of Mothra, Moll and Lora, come to

the rescue and call on Mothra to fight the creature off. Belvera,

the bad faerie sister, tries to stop them. They're costumes have

changed since the first movie, and they still look pretty cool, but I

liked Belvera's old costume better. At least the Captain Planet

stuff isn't as sappy as it was in the first movie.

Dagahra is pretty cool looking, but not as cool as some of the other

baddies in other kaiju movies. The fight scenes were a lot more

action packed and a lot steadier then the first, which helped keep

the boredom at bay. But still, I tended to get bored while watching

it. While Mothra can kick ass, his powers seem to be so weird and

varied that it's almost like there isn't anything he can't do.

Mothra can even transform into Aqua-Mothra to fight underwater, as

well as turn into a bunch of Mini-Mothras to actually go INSIDE

Dagahra and fight the little poisonous starfish critters it can shoot

out.

Overall: Rebirth of Mothra 2 is more entertaining then the first one,

but it's still a mediocre kaiju movie. It goes from kinda

entertaining, to kinda weird, and finally just kinda boring. Like

the first one, it's worth renting if you're a fan.

I started watching this on a whim, since it was uploaded as Japanese dub with English subtitles, which is how I prefer to watch the kaiju movies. I hadn't seen the first 'Rebirth of Mothra' before this one, so I may have been missing some context for it.

It definitely seemed more of a kids' movie than some of the kaijus I've seen.

I give it major deductions, particularly for its heavy reliance on greenscreens & early-gen CGI, which made for a lot of unbelievable scenes. I was surprised at the amount of blood shown on the shirts of the two human antagonists in one of the later scenes - & even more surprised to see them in the scene immediately following to be wearing perfectly clean shirts!

I give it one star for the studio of the ancient city, which was surprisingly ornate, one star for the explosions & such which they look to have put a lot of work into, & three stars for Moll & Lora. Those two cuties were the stars of the show for me. I wouldn't mind wifing that Sayaka Yamaguchi, to be honest.

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....