I am about to commit Godzilla sacrilege in saying that Mothra really is not one of my favorite monsters from the classic series. I know how popular this monster is among the fans, and how highly this movie in particular ranks in their personal top tens, but I used to fall asleep through Mothra movies as a kid and I nearly did again as an adult.
This movie deals with a mysterious egg that is found near a fishing village. Very quickly a money hungry business man from Happy Enterprises, named Kumayama, manages to buy the egg to put it on display for all the world to see – for the right price of course. Not very soon after that he is visited in his office by two of the most iconic Godzilla non-monster characters: the Shobijin miniature twins from infant island. They plead for the return of the egg, which belongs to Mothra, but Kumayama doesn´t bow to their request. As this whole fiasco is going on, Godzilla shows up. He had been blown on shore during a hurricane and as usual wastes little time in destroying everything in sight. There seems to be no stopping him – no electric fences, no bombs, nothing except maybe another monster. Thus, the idea is born to ask the inhabitants of Infant Island if Mothra would help defeat Godzilla. At first they refuse, but later change their minds for the sake of humanity as a whole.
A fight ensues between Mothra and Godzilla, but he defeats Mothra who is old and dying. Meanwhile the human cast is having their drama concerning the eggs. They all die by Godzilla's hand when he destroys the hotel they are in. In the end the eggs hatch and baby Mothras still in larva form come out and trap Godzilla in their silk. He falls into the sea and the film is finally over.
Godzilla movies have always had some sort of moral thread to it, even if it's a nonsense one liner at the end, but here they attempted to make morality the center piece and it just slows everything down. In this case the moral of the story is to not screw with nature, even if it is unnatural. But that is the running theme in mostly all the Godzilla movies, so there was no need to hammer us with it. We all know that bad guys nearly always end up dying at the hand of Godzilla, who acts as a impartial hand of GOD at just the right moment. Though the message was sweet the execution is boring, and once those two Shobijin twins start singing, my eyes start to close a bit.
This goes down as the least enjoyable of the movies so far, but it gets better in the next installments.
Post by Phillhp Ray
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