Part of my series of reviews of the Heisei era Godzilla movies. Spoilers within, but we’re talking 90’s Godzilla movies here.

Spoiler alert: Mothra upstages Godzilla. Again.

Whereas Godzilla vs King Ghidorah tried to do a lot, this one tries to do one thing and does it over and over and over: remind us humans that we are ruining the earth. Godzilla movies are not known for their subtlety but this one was so heavy handed with the environmental message - which itself is never more nuanced than, “We’re doing bad things and we should stop” - that it becomes annoying and boring. It doesn’t help we have some pretty forgettable human characters, and frankly, even Godzilla himself doesn’t have much to do in this one. Apparently this was originally a Mothra movie script that they adapted into a Godzilla movie, and it really shows. Godzilla has so little bearing on the plot that it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a version of this without him all together. That’s a problem for a, ya know, Godzilla movie.

So many of the human characters are just here to say the same ham-fisted environmental message over and over. The two leads, Takuya and his ex-wife Masako, could have been interesting with their reconciliation plot, but instead their plot is just kind of boring. Not to mention the fact that Takuya makes such an out-of-nowhere decision that seems totally counter to what little character development he had: namely stealing and trying to sell the Cosmos. It makes no sense! And it’s completely unnecessary! The Cosmos have already been stolen by someone else, motivating Mothra’s attack! There is literally no reason for him to do this; they could have reconciled him with his family in any number of other, more sensical ways.

Also, while I love Mothra, I always get bored when she spends half a movie as a caterpillar. Mothra as a moth always looks so rad. Who actually is interested in seeing a pink slug for half the movie? Give us the Queen of the Monsters at her most regal!

One high point though was the score, especially the Mothra themes. Also Battra is generally a pretty cool design, even in Metapod caterpillar form. The undersea battle between him and Godzilla was exciting and felt different. Also, I really like the actor playing Ando, mainly because he’s one of my favorite human character in the franchise, playing the dad, Yuji Shinoda, in Godzilla 2000.

Overall, a pretty mediocre, borderline forgettable Godzilla movie.

Rating: 2+/5
Watched: 27 February 2024