Truly Dreadful Film

Just so...so bad

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

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).

Before R.o.M.: I was at my local video store and they just happened to have the entire trilogy on Blu-Ray. I can't even find the movies on DVD, so all three movies on Blu-Ray? That's gotta be a treat, I thought. After R.o.M.: This movie sucks. I hate this movie a ton. There are a few good things about it, being that it's a kaiju film and whatnot, but the flaws are too strong to be looked past. The first 2-3 minutes of the film are very promising, as we are introduced right away to Mothra. No build-up. However, as soon as that's done, we are taken right to, without warning, the absolute worst part of the whole movie: annoying, bratty, screaming, whiny kids. There is nothing in this world I hate more than children that aren't well-behaved. These two kids are our main characters, and they are Randy from Christmas Story (1983) and Gertie from E.T. (1982) times a million. They scream, wail, fight, and bicker constantly. I know that's common with little siblings, but they fight so much, it's to the point where their fights are just sporadic. No joke, there's one scene where the kids are just being normal (for once), then they just randomly start fighting and crying again! Well actually, it's more the girl that cries than the boy, and I tell you, she is probably the most annoying crying girl in a movie I have ever heard. That one scene in Pacific Rim (2013) with that crying kid may have been annoying enough, but this makes that scene look normal.The other biggest, most unforgivable flaw in the whole movie is the CGI. There are these familiars and tiny monsters that appear from time to time, but they are CGIed so badly, they are Birdemic levels of bad. Normally, I could forgive them for being bad since it was the mid 90's, but keep in mind that this is Toho, who previously used CG for Godzilla's fire-breath and lasers in prior films, and they actually looked really convincing! This film's CGI is totally unconvincing. Oh, and even before CGI, Toho was able to make anything look real. This movie's CGI is just a complete joke...yeah, you get the idea.Halfway into this movie, you'll also notice, that just when you were expecting a run-of-the-mill kaiju film, that this is a kiddie movie. Now, to make a kaiju film for the youngsters to enjoy isn't a bad idea, but aren't there plenty of 6-year-olds into kaiju films already? Overall, Rebirth of Mothra is just about one of the worst films of all time in my opinion. You can't defend it. You just can't. It was so bad in fact, that I actually stopped watching it 1 hour in. I just couldn't take it! It's too bad! Annoying kids unforgivably bad special effects make this a joke entry in Toho's long line of giant-monster movies. I wish I had spent my money on a Quizno's sub than this.

I've seen that movie last week on TV and was quite disappointed.The story: The bad sister of the sweet little ELIAS ( known from every other movie including Mothra ) wants to steal the "Seal of the Elias", which was found by a family father at a mountain. So she takes her little dragon and flies to the family's house, where the seal is kept. But the Elias can't let that be, take the mini-version of mothra, called "Fee" and also fly there. In the house, a fight between them starts - which is made absolutely ridiculous! It looks like an old ATARI-Game, when Fee and the little Dragon fly through the house and shoot at each other!However, the bad sister is victorious in stealing the seal and uses it to free a three-headed monster: Desghidorah. But wait a moment: three headed monster? (Des)ghidorah? Oh, yes, the style of this monster was inspired by the famous King Ghidorah. But not more! This monster has got no personality and seems not to register it's surrounding-the heads just go up and down, up and down...But what's so cruel about Desghidorah? Well, it absorbes energy from earth, trees and air - which are dead afterwards. Unfortunately, this absorbing isn't visualized - Desghidorah just stamps his feet... To stop Desghidorah from killing all life on earth, the Elias decide to call Mothra - what's done with a song. Yeah, okay, we know the girls like to sing - but they do it three times in that movie! And the songs are awfully kitschy. A funny things about it is the background, which starts to get coloured and coloured flowers flow around - looks like a seventies-music-video!Mothra arrives to fight Desghidorah, but is to weak and old for the strong-growen monster! So the Elias call Mothra's child - with a song, of course. I don't want to tell the whole story here, some people reading this may not have seen the movie yet...So I start with my final judgement: The story of the film is weak - but that's not important in a monster movie. What is important is that the special effects are absolutely ridiculous for a 90's movie! Mothra and Desghidorah have nearly no moveable parts, the flying scenes are bad as hell ( there are better ones in some 70's movies! ). Every scene is clearly visible made in front of a blue screen - and the intaken pictures have another contrast than the foregrund... Through all the movie it's very clear that money was a problem in the making of it. None of the monsters ever gets to a city, all fights are shown in woods - that's cheaper than a miniature city. But it's boring! Not a single building gets crushed! And Desghidorah doesn't radiate enough threat to build somewhat like tension...So the movie gets along boring and tensionless and you get angry about the bad special effects, supporting the bad impressions. According to that, it is far too kitschy and has too much annoing characters!

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.