Mosura 2: Kaitei no daikessen

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...

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....

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.

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.

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.