Mosura

Although not generally one of the most popular kaiju (Japanese for monster) movies, Mothra: 1996 is in my opinion one of the most beautiful.

Mothra: 1996 is the first in a new trilogy from Toho studios. It features one of their most popular monsters Mothra. Mothra battles a new creation in the form of Death Ghidora. Although, the fairies in this film are not the same in past films they do an adequate job.

What caught my attention of this film was the first 30 minutes. The beautiful visuals of the northern forest and of it being destroyed by man leading to the discovery of the tomb of Death Ghidora. Death Ghidora is one of Toho's most popular recent creations and is a fearsome looking beast. This film contains no less than 4 separate battles between Mothra and Death Ghidora.

The special effects are up to par and the creation of Belvera, the evil fairy is interesting. Although geared toward younger viewers, die-hard kaiju fans should have no problem enjoying this film.

I guess it can be argued that all kaiju is for children, but this one is in the way that the old Gamera films were. The principle human characters are children. The dialog is light and cheery, most of the time. This is not so much about monster battles but kids having an adventure and saving the day.

It's nice and entertaining, but those expecting a typical Godzilla-type kaiju film are going to be disappointed.

I got this DVD more then a year ago in L.A. Being a long- time Godzilla and Co. fan, and seeing a DVD with a double feature of Rebirth of Mothra, and Rebirth of Mothra 2 was just too silly for me not to buy. Rebirth of Mothra is definitely that, silly. Sometimes it's a good kind of silly, other times it's just a boring silly. The plot was a typical kaiju (Japanese for monster, i.e. Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, etc.) plot, with a seal being removed and a wicked monster coming out to wreak havoc on the planet. The human acting wasn't that good, really. The special effects were pretty cool in places, and bad in others and there was some pretty good cinematography.

Most of the kaijus I've seen, which is a hell of a lot, tie the humans into the story somehow. That way you're not just watching two bigass monsters going at it for 90 minutes. Most of the time, the human plot is cheesy but still entertaining. Rebirth of Mothra is not one of those. The human plot, if I could even call it that, was boring and pointless and pretty much just had a couple bratty kids sitting on a mountainside watching the battle. If that's not bad enough, some of the lines seemed to be spoken in telekinesis, considering it was just blank stares looking at each other.

I don't know whether to blame the writing, the directing, or the acting for all the blank, meaningless stares. All the humans were pretty horrible actors, and the bad dubbing didn't help any. The only three who were actually pretty cool were the three faerie girls. They weren't the same as the twin faeries from previous Mothra movies, and they weren't even twins. Actually, they looked totally different, but that's ok. They wore cool costumes, carried most of the story, and even sang a song or two. And the evil faerie sister, trying to use Desghidorah for her own evil ways, was actually pretty cute, so that's always a plus.

The special effects had its ups and downs. There were a few really great looking scenes, and Desghidorah (which was pretty much like a black King Ghidorah with four legs) was pretty badass looking.

Mothra looked pretty cool in a few scenes, too. There was the usual caterpillar version crawling around for a little bit which looked the same as always, if not a little worse then in older movies. I don't really want to give it away, but the underwater Mothra scene looked really good. The only problem is, there can't be the same kind of action that's in a Godzilla movie, and cause Mothra just isn't as tough or limber as Big G. She can fly around and shoot stuff, but that's about it. This is pretty evident through most of the movie, when Mothra's getting beaten pretty badly. But there is one pretty cool scene near the end where it actually convinces you that Mothra CAN kick some ass.

Overall: It's a so-so kaiju, with a couple cool fight scenes. It's mostly pretty boring, focusing on human's who don't really have much to say or do, other then run around, doing silly stuff. It's worth a rental if you're into these kinds of movies.

This movie was the first of three solo Mothra adventures following the Heisei Godzilla series. This movie was pretty good. It has some great points to it: fast pace, great looking monsters, great optical effects, lots of monster fights, as well as a cute looking actress as Lora. However, I thought the movie was too kid-oriented and that the final battle was too short. The monster battles lacked the ferocity of Godzilla battles and Mothra's powers seemed overkill. However, it is a fun movie for fans of the genre.

Mothra in beast mode! People need to lighten up this movie was amazing kaiju action. If you didn't like this why are you even watching giant monster movies?