After helping to defeat Godzilla in Godzilla vs. Mothra, Mothra returns to her island to rest, and lays an enormous egg. Luckily, she has a fancy way of laying the egg using mystic power rather than the traditional method, had she laid it the normal way I fear it would have turned her inside out! Anyway, Mothra is watched over by the Elias two fairies named Lora and Moll (renamed Mona in the US dub). Everything is well until a company working in the Hokkaido rain forest, while logging the area accidentally unearths mysterious markings, and one man named Goto removes a small metal symbol from a hole in the rock. Moll and Lora both sense this, as does a third fairy named Belvera, only she’s a baddie. Goto catches a flight home and gives the symbol to his young daughter Wakaba as a present to make up to her and big brother Taiki for having to work so much and not being at home. All is not well the next day however, after Goto returns to the site in Hokkaido after strange things start happening, Wakaba starts acting very strangely, and it becomes apparent she is under the control of the dastardly Belvera who is riding a funny little winged dragon-like creature. Moll and Lora soon appear to help, however, riding their own creature, a mini-Mothra called Fairy. In the dogfight around Wakaba and Taiki’s home, Belvera escapes with the symbol, revealed to be a seal to the prison of an evil space monster, Desghidorah.
Moll and Lora tell the kids and their mother (not sure if they ever actually name her, though she’s not terribly important as I’ll reveal later) about Desghidorah. He travelled the galaxy draining the energy from planets, and eventually made it to our solar system millions of years ago where he rendered Mars a barren wasteland. He then headed to Earth and destroyed the dinosaur population of the planet, but was fought, beaten and imprisoned by Mothra before he could totally destroy the planet. However, now Goto’s and his company have unearthed his prison, and Belvera uses her mind control on Goto himself to send a bulldozer loaded with dynamite crashing into the rock formation holding Desghidorah, allowing her to release the beast with the seal. Luckily (or not, depending on your viewpoint) the kids arrive with their mother and the Alias, though not in time to prevent Belvera from freeing the creature. The fearsome monster is unleashed and immediately starts to drain the living energy from all of the plants in the rain forest. You see, Desghidorah is not interested in the life force of human beings or other animals, according to the perky Alias, for they don’t live long enough, however trees could live for hundreds of year and so have much more life force. Ooookay then!
Though Lora fears Mothra is too weak, both due to her great age, and having just layed an egg twice her size, her and Moll summon her to go into battle against Desghidorah once again. Despite her age, Mothra IS the Guardian of the Earth after all, and she launches herself from atop her egg, and heads off. Mothra gives it all she can, using her antennae lasers, firing energy bolts from her wings, and using her devestating golden electro-glitter of death. Just as it seems she is getting the upper hand, Desghidorah shrugs off the attack and returns fire with his own three headed onslaught of doom, sending poor Mothra crashing to the ground. Sensing its mother is in trouble, the new moth offspring frees itself from its egg and makes its way, in pupa form, to help out mommy. Mothra Jnr. fares okay for a short while using magic silk spray and a nifty energy attack, but Desghidorah’s three heads soon get the better of it and after being distracted by the destruction of a dam, Mothra picks up baby and escapes. Poor Mothra is worn and beaten after her battles however, and she drops into the sea, leaving poor Mothra the Second alone as she sinks down into a watery grave. Desghidorah soon regains his momentum and continues his task of draining, burning, and destroying everything in his path, while the young giant caterpillar, the Alias, and a couple of annoying children must find a way to stop him.
Knowing that this was a kaiju movie for kids, of course I feared the worst. They had the cutesy little fairly people, cute little animals for them to ride around on, and the two whining kids with the pathetically ineffectual parents who let them run off and do whatever they like when there’s a big monster on the loose. However, and I’m shocked too, the movie works. In fact, not only does it work, it works really well. There are irritations though, don’t get me wrong. First off, the kids are extremely annoying, not helped by the whining dubbing they received in this Columbia Tristar version. Their parents are, as they often are in kids movies, utterly ineffective and unable to stop their kids from wandering into the middle of a battlefield where, much to the chagrin of anyone over 12, they don’t get annihilated but instead get to help Mothra and co. save the day. There are also irritating plot ambiguities, the most glaring of which being that Belvera happily uses mind control on Wakaba and Goto earlier in the film, but later on when it would have been very beneficial to do it again, she conveniently forgets all about it and loses any menace she might have had with it. If she’d just made those damn kids walk off a cliff at some point everything might have been fine. Oh well.
However, you’re some sort of freak if you’re watching this movie for its plot depth and character development, we want to see some giant monsters mix it up, and mix it up they do. This has to be one of the most visually striking films of its type that I’ve seen, boasting loads of pretty good SFX, explosive battles, and gorgeous scenery. Its really worth sitting through all the crap early on to see Desghidorah (Death Ghidorah originally, but I kinda like the other name) strut his stuff. Another from the line of King Ghidorah/Ghidrah monsters, Desghidorah boasts some new innovations for the three-headed beastie. First off, he has four legs rather than two which gives him a pretty distinctive look, and he is also covered in near-black armoured plates rather than the familiar gold scales of his brothers, his heads also sport cool glowing red eyes. One of the most impressive things about the suit itself is that the central head actually breathes fire. This really does add a degree of realism to the SFX, rather than just having some cheap super-imposed flame effect haphazardly pasted on top. The monster also sports the usual lightning-style blasts of the other Ghidorahs, complete with the heads that wave about everywhere and leave you wondering how they actually hit anything. All in all, this is a darn good monster design and a well-executed suit. He isn’t the most mobile of the kaiju, but the battles are very much centred around the SFX-based energy attacks of the monsters, which is another area where this film excels. The attacks of Mothra and her offspring really are wonderfully impressive, very much in keeping with the ones Mothra had in her appearance in the Heisei series, her electro-glitter of death looks fantastic. Mothra’s child also gives the effects team the chance to introduce some new attacks too, and these too are pretty spectacular. The setting for the battles, the Hokkaido rain forest, also gives us the chance to see some lush and attractive settings for the battles, which makes a great change from the dull empty spaces Godzilla tends to battle in.
I urge you to try and tolerate the high Kenny-factor, and give this movie a try. Despite its inconsistencies and annoying kids, the monster battles are truly wonderful and striking, sometimes downright beautiful. I may have had my doubts to whether Mothra could carry a movie without Big G there to stomp on things, but the visual style and fabulous visuals allow this movie to not only succeed, but actually show something of a different style to Toho’s Godzilla movies. I knew Mothra wouldn’t let me down.
One other question remains, however. Which of the Elias is the cutest? Lets review:
The more refined Moll
The kinda gothy Belvera
You picked Belvera?!