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Film: Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (Gojira vs. Mosura)
Year: 1992
Director: Takao Okawara
Writer: Kazuki Ohmori
Starring: Tetsuya Bessho, Satomi Kobayashi and Takehiro Murata
Review:
This film begins with a meteorite crashing into the Pacific Ocean. It wakes up Godzilla and it also creates some horrible weather. It also wakes up another large monster.
We then shift to a man who is stealing a statue from a temple, he is played by Tetsuya Bessho. He narrowly escapes, only to be arrested. While in jail, he is visited by his ex-wife, played by Satomi Kobayashi, and a man from a company she works for, played by Takehiro Murata. They want him to come to an island where there is something that comes up on a scan. He refuses, but then agrees when he learns that he won’t get out of jail for sometime unless he does.
The island they go to is Infant Island. They begin their search and after some mishaps, find that part of the island has been decimated. There are no trees there and it is has been stripped. The three find a cave where there are drawings of two large flying creatures doing battle. They take a different exit to find a giant egg. They also find two small girls, known as the Cosmos. They are played by Keiko Imamura and Sayaka Osawa. She tells them the story of the egg and that Mothra is inside of it. Man has upset the balance of Earth. They warn that Mothra, Godzilla and another monster, Battra are awake because of this.
There is a professor who is monitoring Battra as it makes its way toward land, the professor is played by Saburô Shinoda and with him is Akiji Kobayashi. There is also the head of the company who has been ruining the environment, played by Makoto Ohtake. He wants the egg and the Cosmos. Murata gets everyone to agree to bring it Tokyo. Battra attacks and then returns to the ocean.
On the way there though, Godzilla attacks their ship. Bessho wants to cut the egg loose, but he is stopped by Murata. The egg hatches and Mothra emerges. Godzilla and the larvae do battle and then are joined by Battra. Godzilla and Battra end up at the bottom of the ocean in a trench. Everyone believes that they were killed by molten magma.
The Cosmos are then kidnapped by Murata and brought to Ohtake. He plans to use them to make a fortune. They sing their song and Mothra comes to the city. It destroys everything in its path.
On the way back, Satomi believes that Bessho have reconciled their differences. That is until they arrive at the airport. Satomi is greeted by their daughter, but he sneaks off and leaves the building. He then makes a deal with a shady man in order to steal the Cosmos back and make a fortune.
He does end up with them, but he is confronted by his daughter and Satomi. It is decided he will clean up his act and let them go. The Cosmos do stop Mothra from completely destroying the city. A general is overzealous though and fires upon Mothra. She ends up getting hurt to the point where it stops on the capitol building and going into a cocoon.
They also learn that Godzilla is not dead. It attacks the city. Mothra becomes its true form, a giant moth. Battra also shows it is not done and becomes a giant moth as well. What will happen? Can Mothra protect Earth from these two monsters? Who will win?
I do have to say that I found this film is to be interesting. The acting is cheesy in this one. I also felt like they dedicated a lot of time to it and the story, but then that falls to the wayside for the last 45 minutes that is dedicated to the monsters. I do like that they have a good balance of Mothra as a larvae as well as a moth. My biggest issue with many of the old films is that Mothra is never a moth. I liked Godzilla in this one, even though he has some of the lowest running time on screen for a film with him in it. Battra was cool as well. Battra is supposed to be the dark version of Mothra and it definitely looked like it. I also wasn’t expecting that Godzilla is still a bad monster in this film, but I do like it.
I have kind of touched on some of the issues. The first is that too much of the film was dedicated to the back-story for the humans and then I feel like it was ignored. I liked that they brought back up the issue of destroying nature, but they didn’t really flesh out enough the battle between them. I also wasn’t a huge fan of what happens between Mothra and Battra. I felt like it was a little bit too childish.
Now with that said, this film is not bad. It is still not as good as some of the classic ones, but still worth a viewing I would say. The acting though is cheesy and the story tries to be complex, but we don’t really get too much of a resolution on it, so I feel like it is wasted. The battle scenes are good, but it does take a little too long to get to them. If you are only going to watch one film from the series, do not make it this one, but if you are out to watch all the films from the series, then I would say give this one a try.
My Rating: 6 out of 10