Mothra vs. Godzilla

An enormous egg washes ashore in Japan following a devastating typhoon.  As many seek financial gain from its existence, a pair of tiny messengers plead for the eggs return to its mother: Mothra.  Things become even more dire when Godzilla awakens from his slumber and threatens the destruction of Japan once again.  The only hope is for Humanity to seek Mothra’s aid.  But if they continue to refuse returning her egg, will Mothra leave Humanity to its final fate?

We’re still in early days for Godzilla with this, the fourth film in the franchise, Mothra vs. Godzilla.  We’re not even at the point where Godzilla gets top billing in fights yet.  Still, much of this movie is very much a Mothra film.  Naturally it’s because of the success of the Mothra films that we even got this epic mash up between these two Japanese legends.  While I’m not surprised the Mothra side of this movie shines, it’s the Godzilla portions that is surprisingly the weakest…and to be honest, that’s just weird.
 
Like I said, the Mothra plot of this movie makes it a good one even without the titular fight.  Mothra’s design is iconic and the model work with her in flight or in battle is quite stunning.  I also found myself enjoying the Shobijin, the Little Mothra Fairies, a lot.  Any film could take these two identical twins who speak in unison and make them super annoying.  But the Shobijin are used wisely and have good dialogue.  Also the green screen effects used to shrink them down are, for the most part, flawless work.  I was equally, pleasantly surprised to find I wasn’t annoyed much by the human element of this movie either.  Mothra’s movies have always had a strong emphasis on environmentalism and corporate greed destroying things deemed sacred and here is no exception.  In fact, it is a pair of greedy businessmens plot to turn Mothra’s egg into a tourist attraction that nearly gets Humanity killed cause they wont give the egg back to Mothra.
 
Then there’s Godzilla and…man he mustve been having an off day.  And he was off to a good start too, rising out of the ground as if he’d been hibernating since his last theatrical appearance.  But after he wakes up, I was bothered.  I wasn’t a fan of this particular Godzilla suit, especially the upper lip flapping around so much.  Also, yes, Godzilla is a natural bringer of destruction.  In this movie though, he seems more accident prone than anything else.  Getting his tail stuck in an electrical tower, tripping and falling on a castle, slipping into a hole?  Godzilla seemed way more off his game than usual.  Even the green screen effects, super imposing him into the giant he is, didn’t seem up to snuff.  At least the hand puppet here looked better than Gojira.
 
Thankfully, Godzilla did get a good battle against Mothra.  The titular bout was one I was looking forward to cause I’d seen the pair fight together but never against one another.  Mothra’s massive wings gave her a very good advantage…and since Godzilla was having a bad day, she had that advantage going for her as well.  But Godzilla usually gives a good fight and there’s no exception here.  The second fight with Mothra’s larval infants sadly, goes on much longer than needed.  This movie clocks in at just under 90mins but it could easily be shaved to 80 because the last ten minutes just drag the movie down considerably.  Not only is the final fight needlessly long, there’s an extra subplot for the humans to get involved in well after their main purpose in the movie has been served.
 
I can see now why this is titled Mothra vs. Godzilla and not the other way around (we’d get a reversed title flick much, much later).  As a Mothra film, this movie is great.  The themes and messages are solid and the creature work on Mothra, her tiny representatives and her children are all spot on.  Godzilla seems to stumble, quite literally, through much of the film but brings his A Game for the main fights themselves.  Overall, this was a meeting of Japanese Titans that probably paved the way for other big fights to take place afterwards.  As friends or foes, when Godzilla and Mothra share the screen, you know you’re in for a good time and that is certainly, mostly, the case here.
 
7/10