Film Review: Godzilla vs. Mothra (dir by Takao Okawara)

Last night, I watched a marathon of Godzilla films on Chiller and, perhaps somewhat foolishly, I took it upon myself to review each film that I saw. Following Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, I watched the 19th film in the franchise, 1992’s Godzilla vs. Mothra.

If you’ve seen any previous Godzilla films, you will not be surprised to discover that Godzilla vs. Mothra opens with a random ecological disaster. A meteorite strikes the Earth, causing a mudslide on Infant Island that reveals a very large egg. As you can probably guess from the title, the egg contains the latest incarnation of Mothra, the giant moth who protects human civilization.

And human civilization needs to be protected because that meteorite has also woken up Battra, another ancient insect that serves as a bit of an anti-Mothra. Battra was created by the Earth to maintain a balance between the planet and the humans who lived on it. Whenever the Earth feels threatened, Battra destroys the menace. Unfortunately, mankind is now the biggest threat to the planet.

And, finally, when that meteorite struck, Godzilla was hibernating under the sea. Now, Godzilla is awake and he’s not particularly happy about it. One thing that I always find interesting about Godzilla films is that the film’s human heroes are always 1) so shocked to discover that Godzilla has woken up and 2) so incapable of tracking Godzilla down once he does wake up. Seriously, how hard is it to find a gigantic lizard that breathes radioactive fire?

Godzilla vs. Mothra has its good points (for example, the idea behind Battra is a fascinating one and, as is to be expected from a Godzilla film, the monster fights are handled well) but, for the most part, it’s one of the more uneven of the Godzilla films. The film is maybe 10 minutes too long, the heavy-handed ecological message makes Godzilla vs. Hedorah look subtle and nuanced, it drags whenever the monsters are not on-screen, and, as far as the English language version is concerned, the dubbing is so atrocious that I almost suspect that it was done poorly on purpose.

But, that said, Godzilla vs. Mothra has one big thing going for it. Mothra kicks ass! Of all the various monsters that often play sidekick (or rival) to Godzilla, Mothra is my favorite. (I even like her more than that armadillo from Godzilla vs. Gigan.) Whereas the rest of the Toho monsters can never seem to decide whether they want to destroy the Earth or save it, Mothra is the franchise’s warrior queen. She is the one who serves not only as the voice of reason but she is also usually the only one who can convince Godzilla to stop destroying Tokyo long enough to defeat the aliens or Ghidorah or whatever other threat has invaded Japan this week. And, during those rare times when Godzilla ignores her (like in this film, for instance), Mothra puts him in his place.

Best of all, Mothra may start out as an ugly larvae but you always know that, halfway through the film, she’s going to emerge as a beautiful moth. There’s a valuable life lesson there for all of us.

Seriously, Mothra — you go, girl!