Director: Takao Okawara
Year: 1992
Length: 102 minutes
The Story:
Just going to crib wholly from Wikipedia here:
"The Cosmos tell of an ancient civilization that tried to control the Earth's climate 12,000 years ago, thus provoking the Earth into creating Battra. Battra, a male divine moth similar to Mothra, but much more fearsome in appearance, destroyed the civilisation and their weather-controlling device but then became uncontrollable, and started to harm the very planet that created him. Mothra was then sent by the Earth to fight Battra, who eventually lost. The Cosmos explain how the meteoroid uncovered Mothra's egg, and may have awoken Battra, who is still embittered over humanity's interference in the Earth's natural order."And so it begins.
Battra has awakened and the military engage it in the water as it encroaches upon Japan, unsuccessful in deterring it. Battra goes on a rampage through a miniature city of Nagoya with regular tanks and planes and lazertanks proving as ineffectual as always. Battra does cease its attack, and disappears, burrowing into the ground.
Meanwhile, the Cosmos twins agree to the Mothra egg being transported to the mainland for protection. But Godzilla follows them. Takuya and the company man fight over releasing the egg, but as they fight, the egg begins to glow and rupture. Mothra has hatched. It escapes Godzilla's atomic breath and goes on the attack, biting Godzilla's tail. The two tussle when Battra joins the fray, attacking Mothra first. It's three opponents all against each other. Battra takes the battle underwater. Their titanic combat causes a volcanic eruption and pulls both of them down into the Earth.
The company man, reeling from the loss of the Mothra eggs steals the Cosmos twins. Not sure exactly how he thinks they're going to make this already wealthy company even more rich, but *shrug*. Meanwhile, Masako and Taguya return home from Manila where their very young daughter (like 7 years old, maybe) is just waiting at the airport for them by herself. Masako worries about the twins, and if Mothra is going to come looking for them. Rather than greet his young daughter, Takuya steals away and kidnaps the twins from their kidnappers. He makes an offer to an American investor for 1 million dollars for them
With Mothra coming to the twins rescue, and no telling the damage she will cause along the way, the government has no choice but to set the full fire power of the military on her. But she is not deterred.
Takuya is guilted by his daughter into freeing the Cosmos just in time for Mothra to cease her attack (but in returning to the ocean she's starts another rampage of destruction so the military bombards her. She's injured and cocoons herself amidst the Diet Building (tastes just like the Regular Building but with half the calories).
Meanwhile, the readings of Mount Fuji are off the charts. It goes volcanic. Godzilla emerges and he seems pissed. But his attack rouses a quickly gestated Mothra from her cocoon, and the giant, furry, bug-eyed muppet goes on the attack. But not to fight Godzilla...but Battra, who isn't dead, and transforms from its larval stage into its moth-form via magic. Sigh.
The JSDF now has helicopters with lasers, which are just as ineffectual at battling Godzilla as the helicopters with missiles and tanks with lasers were. Back to the drawing board. Maybe heli-tanks with laser missiles?
Mothra and Battra bash into each other for a bit while flying around Yokohama, causing a lot of property damage along the way. Godzilla, feeling left out, joins the fray. Battra attacks, dropping a building on Godzilla, but it only slows him down. Mothra and Battra have a chat and decide to team up against their foe. Mothra uses that weird moth dust to reflect Godzilla's attack upon himself, while Battra grabs a giant ferris wheel and tangles Godzilla up in it for a bit. In the end, Mothra and Battra drag Godzilla back out to sea, where Battra takes the full brunt of Godzilla's atomic blast, but they both go into the deep.
Mothra survives, but needs to leave now, because there's a meteor that's heading for collision with Earth in the year 2000 and Battra was supposed to stop it, but since he's dead now, it's up to Mothra to make the journey into space and divert the meteor and save everyone and everything. Yes, Mothra got Poochied.
And I guess Takuya and Masako are going to give it another try? I don't have high hopes for these two.
Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
He bad.
The Sounds:
I actually like the deep, orchestral rehashing of the Mothra theme
The Message:
Corporate greed is threatening the Earth and so the Earth is punishing us for our arraogance. Like, don't be greedy.
Also, we can't stay in our eggs forever.
And when the Earth's 21st century begins, take a moment to think of Mothra, and the Cosmos, for saving us all.
Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZz
The Indiana Jones-like adventurousness of the first 20 minutes is actually quite charming, but that first exposition dump from the Cosmos twins just had my eyes glazing over at how goddamn convoluted it is.
But, this was much more straightforward than the prior two Godzilla films. Of course the writer makes scenes overly complicated by too often feeling the need to explain what is happening (or has happened) leading to some real clunky dialogue. Unlike vs. Biollante or vs. King Ghidorah, this one has a stripped-down cast of characters. There's Takuya, Masako, their daughter, the Marutomo guys, and the returning Miki the psychic girl, and the government guys we've been seeing for the past two films who do little but despair over how they're going to stop the latest kaiju threat.
The underwater fight was something different that I quite liked, but the Yokohama fight just seemed like rubber suits bashing into each other with special effects light shows bursting from their mouths. It's a pretty tired formula at this point. The creature designs obviously limit what sort of physical actions can be done, but there's got to be more they can do than what they have been doing these past three films.
After concerns last film that maybe there was too much arrogance, this film backtracks and returns to pointing one finger at corporate greed, and three fingers pointing back at itself for fuelling such greed, all leading to environmental harm. It's interesting how much of Godzilla is more about environmental concerns than nuclear concerns even since the 60's.
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