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.

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.

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.

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.

The first "Rebirth of Mothra" was truly an interesting movie but the second incarnation is weak. All three of the little fairies: Moll, Lora and the evil Belvera return which helps this movie. Mothra is no longer just a youngster from the first but a more mature Moth with new weapons to save the Earth. The best weapon was the ability to change into an underwater Moth. She was like a "slick" looking submarine as she was swimming. Another weapon was the ability to break into little Moths, with the "battle smarts" to battle the evil creature Dagarah internally. Talk about giving someone "heartburn." Dagarah sure had a pain in his stomach. He needed to learn that swallowing your enemy is not the "best policy." The weakest part of this film was a little doll like thing called the "Ghogo." It was supposed to contain much power but this was really hard to believe if you "judge a book" by its appearance. It was so child-like that this film seemed like a "kiddie-fair" whenever you watched this creature move around.