Rebirth of Mothra 1 & 2 [DVD] [1996] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Mothra's jump to her own movies was clearly somehting fans of the monster genre wanted. Her popularity as a recurring enemy of Godzilla's brough her a legion of fans including myself. And so thus we have the Rebirth of Mothra films. The DVD combo has the first 2 films in the trilogy on one disc (flip side style). So I'll review both in order.

Rebirth of Mothra 1: The story focuses around a construction company or something tearing down a forest when they uncover in a mountain a strange seal. Once broken the seal attracts the attention of the always present little Fairies who guard Mothra. This also attracts a third Fairy whose not only evil but a complete bitch throughout the movie. The main human cast are the head of the construction project, his wife and two children who spend alot of the movie moaning about how they hate the other despite trying to run from certain danger. The Evil Fairy uses this seal to awake DesuGhidorah a obvious alternate version of the well known King Ghidorah. Turns out this Evil Fairy is the good fairies sister who hates humans (wow like weve never seen that before). The Good Fairies (they have names but they never had them before so why start now) call on Mothra to fight Ghidorah, also a Larva Mothra arrives to help its mother. Both Mothras are much more popwerful then their Godzilla fighting counterpart as now they shoot lasers and camoflague to hide themselves from DesuGhidorah. Of course as we find out the current Mothra is really old so we get this slightly touching death scene where the younger Mothra tries to save her but can't. This leads to te films final epic, but sadly very short battle (I guess the movie budget went to much into the first big fight). The Larva becomes a new form of Mothra known as Rainbow Mothra and battles DesuGhidorah.
The movies clear meant to be based as a family film for kids of certain ages, parents but also the monster movie fans. It spends msot of the movie trying to give out thsi message of how We're destroying nature and we need to protect it for future generations. This grates on your after a while if you bought this to see a Monster brawl. Some scenes in the film are sort of not needed, early on the Evil Fairy actually posses a little girl whilst she rides on her small mechanical dragon thing. Then we get a 10 minute scene of the Three Fairies riding their own monsters in a laser shooting match in someones house, its like Mothra meets Top Gun.
The human characters are forgettable, we got two annoying kids, over acting adults, family issues and all sorts. And personally many of us once again just want to see Monsters fight, is that so much to ask?

Rebirth of Mothra 2: Again this films suffers from too much plot and a major lack of monster battles. Once again its giving a message which is don't litter, they might as well added if we should give a hoot.
The films focuses around the Two Good fairies teaming up with three kids who live on a island, the main female (a little girl who wants to protect the environment, big surprise) and two idiots who are meant to be your typical boys who pretty much act like jerks. They are also joined by some strange little creature thats a cross between a Furbie and Gizmo from Gremlins. The Good Fairies ask the children to help find a sunken civilization (no not Atlantis) thus putting them in mortal danger for the good of the planet. Of coruse Evil Fairy is back and 'hires' two treasure hunters to help her find this sunken city for it is meant to contain Great Power. So the kids have to find this great treasure first of the evil fairy and her two greedy accomplices will do something evil which isn't really that original.
Oh yeah this a monster movie, well it turns out the civilization created a monster which feeds off garbage and goes on a attack spree. Naturally Mothra arrives to fight the good fight as the two go head to head in a battle of skill, wits and lasers. This leads to the final battle in the film which sees Mothra transform into a new form known as Metal Mothra.
Again this film was created to be a family movie so its got loads of messages like "don't littler", "protect the Earth", "Don't be greedy" and the one I made up myself "Don't help a evil fairy and threaten to kidnap and kill little children". Again the acting is terrible, the plot is forgettable, thank God two flying monsters start beating each other up.

Overall thoughts: The Mothra movies have good a bad points. Good points are the special effects, set designs, Monster suits, music and sound effects for the battles. The first has more explosion in it but the 2nd movie fight scenes are pretty decent. But like I've mention the bad points are anyone whose human, or a Fairy.
My overall though is that is is one for die hard monster movie fans only, if your more a Godzilla then a Mothra fan I'd stay clear.

"Even if it is that big, a moth's still a moth. How can it defeat such a terrible monster?"
"It's just an insect, but don't write it off."

1996's Rebirth of Mothra is a very hit-and-miss revamp of the one Toho series to rival Godzilla's international popularity. The first half hour is close to unwatchable, starting out as an ugly maggot of a film aimed at the smallest of children before transforming with the very welcome arrival of King Ghidorah to banish the human players to the sidelines for what must be the most prolonged monster battle in any Toho film. But to get there you have to put up with the Elias, the two tiny singing fairy girls on their mini-Mothra, trying to stop their evil sister Elvira from tormenting a couple of children as part of her plan to revive Ghidorah. This mainly involves extremely bad special effects of her flying on her miniature robot dragon and destroying their furniture while everyone screams a lot, although that could just be the sound of the studio's old special effects maestro Eiji Tsuburaya bewailing the drop in quality since his day. Even the obligatory Mothra song is given the kind of cheap music video graphics you thought went out in the 80s.

Just when you're more than ready to hit the eject button, the three-headed Ghidorah makes his entrance in an impressively fiery rebirth in the middle of a volcano before making short work of the ageing Mothra, and the filmmaking and effects suddenly take a drastic turn for the very much better. While Mothra always had a limited arsenal, the battle here is surprisingly well choreographed and vicious, with some striking imagery, not least the scene of the giant moth sinking below the waves before being reborn. Unfortunately the new design isn't as attractive, though it has a new trick or two added to its arsenal, most spectacularly the ability to turn itself into hundreds of tiny moths. Thankfully the irritating humans are almost completely sidelined for the last two thirds of the film, which adds to the impression that the opening was just dumb padding but does allow you to see more colourful monster mash-ups with only sporadic moments of the humans running away in the ensuing devastation. There are still some silly moments - not least the appearance of one supporting character in a wheelchair in an incinerated forest - but it's worth it for the prolonged finale.

Rebirth of Mothra II is never as bad as the first half hour of its predecessor but never as good as the prolonged monster mash in the last two thirds, and not just because it has a weaker monster. Dagahra is a sea monster created by an advanced ancient civilisation that sunk into the sea and was intended to eat the pollution in the oceans, but freed from the ocean surface it spawns hordes of toxic starfish, or rather Star of Davidfish, before heading to dry land for the traditional rampage. It's up to a little girl and two mischievous schoolboys to save the day with the help of Ghogo, which is pretty much a Furby with an antennae and urine that can heal serious injuries, and the Elias, the two tiny singing fairy girls. Together they go in search of a fabled treasure in a sunken city that will save the world, pursued by their evil sister Elvira (who just disappears from the last few reels without explanation) and a couple of bumbling slackers who've probably seen Home Alone too many times to a nicely designed pyramid that's part Mayan, part Death Star which rises from the sea. And, wouldn't you know it, they find that they've been carrying the greatest treasure along with them all the time. Which rather makes their trip a bit of a waste of time if you think about it, but since this is aimed firmly at little kids you're not expected to do any thinking.

While the humans are more firmly integrated into the plot this time, unfortunately they don't do much when they get to the pyramid and Mothra and Dagahra's occasionally intercut running battle isn't that interesting either. Despite sounding like a distant relative of Godzilla's hilarious smog-eating sparring partner Hedorah, Dagahra is not the most interesting of monsters, and Mothra's limited bag of tricks doesn't help. As if aware of the flying moth's limitations it is given the power to transform into AquaMothra, which looks like one of those plastic toy birds with flapping wings but at least allows it to carry out the final battle of Space Invaders inside Dagahra's stomach, which is at least a novelty. The effects are hugely variable, some impressively old school, some amateurish in a bad children's TV or video way, though it is interesting to see the traditional man-in-suit monster integrated into a real cityscape in some shots. It's the kind of film you safely let the kids watch, but the nearer they get to puberty the less they'll find to enjoy in it.

Columbia TriStar's Region 1 NTSC DVD offers both films in widescreen transfers on alternate sides of the same disc, but only in dubbed English versions with no extras. The third film in the trilogy remains unreleased in an English-friendly version, though neither of these exactly leaves you champing at the bit for its release. More two-and-a-half stars than three.

Because these movies are hard to get in Germany, I went for this DVD. It's not bad but maybe I am a little spoiled by the Toho Master Collection. I give the DVD only 4 stars because it lacks a Japanese audiotrack and English subtitles (that's the way I like to watch Japanese movies) Anyway, Kaiju Eiga collectors can't go wrong to add this one to their collection, the picture quality is good and, for an import DVD, the price is unbeatably low.