Rebirth of Mothra Review

It’s been many, MANY years since I last saw both this film and Rebirth of Mothra II. Hell, I can’t remember I last saw this, which could possibly mean that I saw this in the early 2000’s, about 10 or even 10+ years ago, as Sony released this film and the sequel onto DVD February 1, 2000.

Anywho, Rebirth of Mothra is suppose to be kind of like a reboot to the original 1961 Mothra film, but was given more of a fantasy/sci-fi feel rather than being more of a horror/sci-fi film just like the 1961 film. Plus, the film and its two other sequels are more focused on Mothra, the Elias girls and the antagonist rather than being focused on just the human-side.

Speaking about the Elias sisters, you can say that they’re a little different than the Cosmos sisters; plus, they’re not twins. However, the Elias sisters are given a much similar background and history like the Cosmos sisters. Anyways, we are introduced by not two, but three Elias sisters in the film – two of which are good and one that turned to the dark-side. The two good Elias sisters are Moll (played by Megumi Kobayashi) and Lora (played by Sayaka Yamaguchi), and then the one that turned to evil is their sister, Belvera (played by Aki Hano).

As far as the story goes, Mr. Goto (played by Kenjiro Nashimoto) works for some kind of timber company that cuts down trees and sells the wood to other companies. He and his crew stumble upon a mysterious rock, and Mr. Goto finds a seal/crest/shield (whichever you’d like to call it) embedded into the rock. He prys the crest from the rock, for which it becomes the first stage into releasing for what it would later become Desghidorah (also known as Death Ghidorah) where Belvera obtains the crest to release the monster from its prison. Desghidorah traveled to Earth to feed on the planet’s life-force, like it did to many other planets before it.

Mothra eventually comes to battle Desghidorah while she’s dying, and then the Mothra Larvae hatches from the egg and comes to help out. The adult Mothra eventually perishes while getting the larvae to safety, which you can say that it’s an emotional moment. The Mothra Larvae soon travels to an island where trees have lived for hundreds to thousands  of years. The larvae finds the perfect tree, cocoons itself and then becomes an adult Mothra to defeat Desghidorah.

During the viewing of Rebirth of Mothra, I have noticed that the film really hasn’t aged well, specifically the visual effects. You can definitely see what I’m talking about when Moll and Lora fight Belvera over the crest at the Goto house. Quite a bit of the perspectives are off and can definitely tell when green screen is used. Even when the Elias sisters jump, it looks very cheesy and just doesn’t look right. However, there are a handful of visual effects that have aged well when it comes to the power beams and such. But overall, the visual effects haven’t aged too well here.

The human drama is ok – however, I’m very surprised that the military was not involved in this film, at all. Even with what was going on and when Desghidorah was on a rampage while the Mothra Larvae was in a cocoon to become an adult. It seemed like everyone just sat around and did nothing and just let Desghidorah suck the life-force out of the Earth. Only the Goto family, specifically the children, Taiki Goto (played by Kazuki Futami) and Wakaba Goto (played by Maya Fujisawa), were the only ones besides Moll and Lora that helped out in the defeat of Desghidorah along with the two Mothras. So yeah, the human drama mostly involved around the Goto family along with the Elias sisters.

The story is good nevertheless and like how they added fantasy elements into the Mothra trilogy, which I think really fits Mothra and which where Mothra belongs to more than the horror/sci-fi part.  Although, the story is at times forcing and/or fast-tracked some elements to fit within the film’s run-time, such as the Mothra Larvae going from being hatched to becoming an adult within 45 minutes to an hour of the film. Probably one of the most boring and dragged-out parts of this film was when Moll and Lora were battling Belvera at the Goto house. This scene has to be up there with the submarine chase scene in Latitude Zero as being one of the most boring and dragged-out scenes of all tokusatsu films. They could’ve cut half of that scene and could’ve used those minutes to actually fit military scenes into the film, but didn’t. But no, the Elias battle scene kept on going and going, and looked like that there was no end in sight.

Speaking of battles, the kaiju battles in this film are pretty good, and pretty much the only best thing to look forward to in this film. Desghidorah is a great formidable foe for the two Mothras, and the young, adult Mothra towards the end of the film had some pretty kick-ass powers to single-handedly defeat Desghidorah, which its parent wasn’t able to defeat.

The film overall, however, is kind of below-average and ok. It hasn’t aged too well since it was released in 1996 – and hell, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah aged pretty well and that film came out A YEAR BEFORE this film. The visual effects in some areas are REALLY dated, the story is good, but not great and seems a bit rushed due to budget constraints, human drama is so-so and really lacks military involvement. The only thing that’s really good is the kaiju fights, but it just can’t hold up and carry the weight of the film due to the other things just mentioned.

Rebirth of Mothra is a film I think can be watched once in a great while and can be fun to watch, so don’t get me wrong. But, prevent watching it once and then wait for another decade or so, then the film REALLY looks outdated and cheesy.

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