Godzilla vs. Mothra II (1992)

[GL]

“Godzilla vs. Mothra” is easily the weakest of the Hensai series, but still watchable.

**SPOILERS**

Caught by the Taiwanese government, archeologist Takuya, (Teysuya Bessho) is approached by his ex-wife Masako, (Satomi Kobayashi) and her environment firm, headed by Tomokane, (Makoto Otake) to bring back a mysterious object found on an isolated island during a recent hurricane. Landing on the island, the team finds a gigantic egg in the there and two tiny twin women, the Comos, (Keiko Imamura and Sayaka Osawa) who claim the egg belongs to Mothra. Bringing it back to Japan, Godzilla appears and attacks the egg, causing the egg to hatch and fight it off, only to be joined by a second moth, Battra. Returning back to Japan with the stolen Cosmos, Tomokane plans on exploiting them for his company, only for them to disappear before Mothra breaks off it’s attack on Japan to rescue them. Returning from within a volcano, Godzilla attacks the two moths and they fight one last time.

The Good News: This here is a weak film, but it does have some good points to it. The monster scenes are generally hard to beat. The destruction of Nagoya is a great highlight, as one landmark after another gets flattened in spectacular fashion. The TV Tower into the building looks incredible, as does the destruction of the castle. A pretty good military battle doesn’t really disappoint, featuring lots of things blowing up and being shot at the creature. The best, though, is Godzilla’s re-emergence from an erupting Mt. Fuji, as explosions and smoke go off in every direction and the monster is standing in the middle of it all, and the impact of it is nothing short of spectacle. The ensuing battle is quite nice, employing mazer jets and tanks in a really thrilling battle that is unfortunately over too short. Just about anything in the film, though, is forgiven in the final battle. A nice, long drawn-out affair with the tide turning for each side and getting in some really nice scenes. From the brief rampage before-hand, to the air battle between the two moths, and a really impressive set-piece involving a giant Ferris Wheel are all great scenes, although the undoubted highlight is the leveling of a building onto Godzilla. The amount of damage caused in the process and how it’s realistically done makes it a real winner of a sequence that is quite breath-taking. The fight itself, which has both hand-to-hand and energy weapons being fired, there’s a good flow to it and it really leaves the film with a high point. It also has a really impressive sequence with the transformation of Battra, being full of power and energy and coming off really impressively. This really wasn’t that bad of an entry.

The Bad News: There is a surprisingly lot to dislike here. As mentioned, the special effects aren’t that bad, but there is a lot of slip-shod work in here that’s quite and easily noticeable. The fact that Mothra and Battra are just puppets in their flying forms, and Mothra as a larvae, is quite easily seen. During the Tokyo rampage, Mothra doesn’t undulate like a real moth does, and as it’s a major sequence that lasts for a long time, it’s quite distracting and doesn’t really come off as convincing. The flying model for both suffers from the lack of movement, as their legs look so stiff and rigid during flight since they don’t move at all makes for more distractions. The film also has some real pacing problems. The opening really could’ve been trimmed down, since too much is spent with the expedition and the archeological digs. The expedition on the island is too long, with a bunch of adventure-film scenes, such as the boating trip, the rickety bridge and the waterfall sequence being prime examples of the film going on far too long. The attack on the floating transport is just way too long. There’s just scene after scene where it just shows different creatures approaching different ships time after time. It just gets old after a while. The film’s biggest problem, though, is Mothra and the final battle. It gets tiring when, time after time, the powerless creature is able to hold it’s own against the far larger monster when it does nothing extraordinary to do so. The fact that Godzilla can blow countless planes out of the sky with no problem in the movie yet can’t score a direct hit on Mothra, who is much bigger a target and flies much slower, is pretty hard to believe and just seems to be inserted just because the film wants it to. These keep the film down from the upper echelons.

The Final Verdict: There is more towards the middle grounds in terms of the series, with a lot to lot and dislike. It’s not a classic but it can still entertain with the best in the series, just don’t be too surprised if there’s moments that don’t work as well as in other entries. A fan of either two monsters should give this a shot, while others may still check it out as well.