JLRVancouver And, of course, hard-core daikaiju fans. "Rebirth of Mothra" is an unsubtle morality-play in which evil loggers remove a sacred seal, releasing an ancient monster ('Desghidorah') who threatens to suck the life out of the Earth. This attracts the attention of a tiny 'witch' flying a miniature dragon, who torments the family of the man who took the seal until Mothra's fairy acolytes show up riding a cloying-sweet mini-Mothra to defend the kids. Meanwhile, 'Desghidorah' continues to ravage the environment until an aging Mothra appears, later followed by her larval offspring. Needless to say, most of the second half of the film is a kaiju battle, featuring pyrotechnics, inexplicable coloured lights, and, since this is a new-age Mothra movie, lots of sparkles. In the end, the environment is saved (at least for now), the forests are miraculously reborn, and the power of love reaffirmed. Even compared to some of the more 'child-friendly' Showa-era Godzilla films (e.g. Son of Godzilla, 1967), this film is strictly for the kids. The 'witch' character (her dubbed voice sounding like the "Wicked Witch of the West") is especially puerile and, like the later Showa-era Gamera films, the human 'heroes' are a couple of irritating kids. All could be forgiven (or at least tolerated) if the movie was a good kaiju epic, but it is not. Mothra has reverted to the furry puppet version seen in 1992's "Godzilla vs. Mothra", although now has a wide array of 'energy-weapons' and convenient supernatural abilities. The new incarnation of Ghidorah is now fatter with front legs, and has lost all of the sinuous grace of the original monster. The original Mothra song is briefly heard (the current fairies lack the charm of the original pair), but in general the film's score is trite and derivative, especially in the action scenes. The special effects are of mixed effectiveness, some of the flying shots of Mothra, Desghidorah, and the fairies/witch are terrible while some of scenes with the larval Mothra are excellent (especially towards the transformation scene, the cocooning is especially imaginative). There are none of the classic (and costly) cityscapes to be destroyed, as most all of the 'battles' are aerial or in forests or mountains (although there is an OK 'dam buster' sequence), and the JDF is never mobilised, so the usual scenes of tanks, missiles, carnage and collateral damage that are core to the canon are absent. As I was watching a dubbed version, I can't really comment on the acting but none of the human characters were interesting or engaging. The biggest problem with the film is the direction: scenes just go on toooo long. The 'dog fight' between flying fairies and the witch in the kids' house is endless, as are the repetitious scenes of Desghidorah emerging from the fire, and the ending of the film is an interminable series of good-byes and reminders of what the 'message' is (in the unlikely event that you missed it). Mothra is a unique and iconic part of Japanese kaiju culture. Her first appearance in 1961 and her battle with Godzilla in 1964 are among the best the genre has to offer. Too bad she's now reduced to being a flying green guilt-trip. I admit that the giant moth has a long history of being a 'guardian' of the Earth, but the heavy-handed 'eco' message in this film is a bit hard to take considering Japan uses about 24 billion disposable chopsticks every year (the equivalent of about 1.6 million trees).

MikeA When a logging company uncovers an ancient artifact in the mountains of Hokkaido, the Company's boss Mr. Goto finds a mysterious talisman. He prises it free from its resting place, thinking it would be a nice present for his daughter. Unfortunately he's unsealed the resting place of Desghidorah, a three headed, fire breathing beastie that's soon freed to run wild and destroy the local scenery, sucking Earth's precious energy.Only a giant plush moth can save the day! A tired old Mothra - tending a lovely big egg - is reluctantly summoned (in a slightly more J-pop than usual fashion) by her tiny priestesses Moll and Lora. These cuties are from a race called the Elias, and they spend much of the movie astride a mini-Mothra called Fairy, battling their nemesis Belvera, who gets to fly a mini dragon thing and cackle a lot.First in a trilogy of Mothra films for the nineties, while Godzilla was taking a well earned break. Clearly aimed at kids more than the average kaiju fan, this is still great fun, and while no cities get totalled in this offering, the countryside looks nice and there are some cool fight scenes between Death Ghidorah and Mothra.There's a 'save the planet' theme going on that gets rammed down your throat a bit before the movie ends, but the more obvious beef many western fans are going to have with this flick is the lack of a Japanese language option on seemingly the only version available. Why do they do this? Yes, the film's been tarted up nicely, and the dubbing is lip-synched and not overly annoying, but some people will always prefer the original language and there seems to be little reason why it shouldn't be included.

gigan-92 This is the kick off of Mothra's very own series and I must say it wasn't a bad move by Toho. You see, Mothra, like Rodan, was originally a solo character who was introduced to the Godzilla franchise in the cross-over "Mothra vs. Godzilla"in 1964. Her first film had been back in 1961 and for whatever reason, audiences like Mothra a lot. Want to guess which monster co-star has been in the most Godzilla films? No, it's not King Ghidorah, no not MechaGodzilla and Christ no it is not Minilla. That's right, it's Mothra. She's starred in a total of nine Godzilla films. MehaGodzilla's been in five and Ghidorah has been in eight. Therefore the idea of her own series wasn't too shabby at all. However, I must say I was expecting more.To begin this review I'll say the good points to this film. Oddly, this film's universe is that of the Heisei Godzilla series. It's the same Mothra from "Godzilla vs. Mothra" back in 1992 to be exact. The monsters are grade A in my book, Mothra and Mothra Leo both look awesome, as well as the larva form. Death Ghidorah looked incredible and his attacks were great. I didn't like his roar and the original shrieks would've been better though. While in flight, the quadruped dragon looked awesome as well. The real downside is that to save money Toho had Death Ghidorah rampage through a forest the entire movie without even touching a single building! Wack status! Isn't Tokyo supposed to get crushed in these films? The thing that truly ruins this flick are the annoying and overly childish characters. The dialogue and every scene involving any of them, especially the fairies, just leaves older viewers like me frustrated. The human characters are just plain crappy. On the opposite side we have good monster moments, as when the larva watches its mother drown right before its eyes, a somber moment where the tragic music really sets the mood. Toshiyuki Watanabe is a great composer, giving Mothra a heroic theme and everything.Unfortunately, most will find the bad outweighs the good and find watching the film unbearable. All in all, I still find it a fun film to watch.

steelcorpfilms 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.