After Godzilla’s previous outing to give Japan a clouting – the furiously timey timey Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah – parent studio Toho decided to keep on giving The King Of The Monster’s gargantuan supporting cast a snazzy, modern upgrade so naturally, next up for a 90’s face lift was Mothra, the peace loving eco-God and consumer of giant sweaters (presumably).
As monstrous choices go, it was somewhat inspired as the fluttering behemoth not only had been sticking her fluffy face into Godzilla’s business longer than Ghidorah, but her very presence requires something of a tonal shift from bonkers sci-fi, to eccentric fantasy which would prevent this new, Heisei era of movies from going stale.
In fact, despite only coming a year after Ghidorah, Godzilla Vs. Mothra couldn’t be a more different movie – well, as different as a Kaiju movie can get, anyways – switching out Cameron-esque cyborgs and time-hoping chicanery for Spielbergian adventure.
After a massive meteor strike awakens Godzilla from his slumber into a predictably crappy mood, the mood in Japan is understandably tense. Six months later, amoral explorer Takuya Fujito opts to avoid some jail time for his Indiana Jones exploits if he agrees to explore Infant Island on behalf of the greedy Marutomo company, but the real cross to bear is that he’ll have to do it while paired with his disapproving ex-wife, Masako Tezuka. However after finding a big, blue egg the size of Zeus’ bowling ball, the expedition makes an even more alarming discovery after stumbling across the Cosmos, a pair of doll-sized priestesses who spend their time bigging up their egg-dwelling god, Mothra.
The Cosmos warn that human’s repeated screwing with Earth’s climate once created Mothra’s opposite, a destructive, horned, male moth-god by the name of Battra and thanks to the shit we’re still doing to Mother Earth and the fact that Mothra’s egg has been uncovered, he’s past due to make his dramatic return. Of course, the representative of Marutomo, being the ruthless shit he is, not only demands that the egg be shipped to Japan for “protection”, but his company also takes possession of the Cosmos too for publicity purposes.
However, the duplicitous nature of man has to take a temporary back seat when a perma-peeved Godzilla shows up and makes a beeline for the huge egg, however, before he can turn the thing into a giant omelette, Battra shows up on cue to also stake a claim on cracking that shell. Mercifully, Mothra hatches and soon we have a monster three-way for the fate of the earth as the King Of The Monster continually insists on placing himself smack-dab in the middle of an ancient moth-feud that actually doesn’t have a damn thing to do with him.
With the franchise still on a roll from Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah, GVM still keeps the same relentless energy its predecessor had while adding a tinge of Hollywood razzle dazzle to the usual, destructive proceedings, but while time travel and androids were previously the order of the day, here the early scenes carry a super strong Indiana Jones feel as we get to know our treasure hunting scoundrel through some decidedly Spielbergian (if a tad low rent) set pieces involving rickety rope bridges and booby trapped temples that crumble easier than a house of cards next to an open window.
In counter point to the added adventure and intrigue that comes with the human related parts of the plot, the monster stuff, with all of its rebooted mythos, rocks pretty damn hard with the introduction of Battra – an evil, punk rock looking moth god with the harsh colour scheme of a black light band flyer – merging impressively smoothly with Mothra’s already established, thirty year old, backstory. Also, considering that both Mothra and Battra – in either of their forms – don’t actually have any arms, the Kaiju throwdowns are actually pretty vibrant with both the larvae and moth forms of two-thirds of the combatants proving to be pleasingly malleable, either blasting their opponents with rainbow coloured energy rays or just ramming each other like bloody maniacs. The fights contain large amounts of personality too as alliances change mid-fight, unlikely friendships are temporarily formed and Battra batters Godzilla with an entire fucking ferris wheel like it’s a multi storey version of ECW – hell, there’s even a continuation of that old running gag of Larvae Mothra being unable to resist sinking her mandible into Godzilla’s tail when his back is turned. Luckily, the numerous bug brawls are easy to follow among the roars and squeals thanks to the return of Mothra’s twin mouthpieces The Shojbin, who call the fight like two diminutive sports commentator and it all proves to be tremendously cool.
Now if this sounds all a little “moth god” heavy for a film with Godzilla in the title, you’d be absolutely correct, as our marauding main monster actually has nothing to do with the main plot, instead rocking up at various points of the plot and unnecessarily complicating things that have nothing to do with him like a belligerent drunk at closing time. Some possibly would criticize this as some poor plotting, but I would personally beg to differ as this new, Heisei era Godzilla had been positioned over the last couple of movies as a force of nature with no real allegiances whatsoever – which basically translates here as having the personality of a asshole who violently butts into things that have nothing to do with him. Bluntly put, it fits the character as smugly as a set of brass knuckles the size of a fight jet.
Of course, what with this being a Mothra movie, expect lots of clumsy, if well meaning, “save the environment” speech slinging, that weirdly borders on preaching despite the gargantuan amount of destruction on display here and some of the early, adventure stuff suffers from being a bit stagey, but despite these qualms, Godzilla Vs. Mothra is still a vastly entertaining movie and a timely welcome back to Toho’s first lady of Kaiju who subsequently graduated to getting her own trilogy near the end of the 90s.
With an long overdue return for Motha, a typically antisocial performance by Godzilla, a new Kaiju in the form of Battra and some perky direction from Takao Okawara, Godzilla Vs. Mothra has enough going for it to turn any fan of monster mayhem into a raging moth addict.
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