Sad to say, but Rebirth of Mothra I is filled with stupid.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining about the plot (though it was a little too light with too much sustained fight-scene), or the kiddie-tone (to be expected, though the dire hospital scenes kinda jarred with it shockingly), or the heavy-handed environmental message (it is a Mothra movie, after all- though I had to groan aloud when the parents were looking out at the fire-scoured, bare-rock landscape that *Desghidorah* had just created and going on about how it 'took nature thousands of years to create, and WE destroyed in a few minutes.' Look, dude- I don't think all the napalm and dynamite in Japan could that thoroughly eradicate a forest, stumps and all- that was not the work of humanity.)
No, all those things (while I managed to list my quibbles in parenthesis) were fine, and expected, and even coming to them after the seriousness of Vs. Destoroyah wasn't enough for them to ruin my enjoyment, since I expected a more juvenile film. No, the real thing that irked me is that, even for a kid's movie, this film was full of characters making stupid choices.
Both kids keep displaying the pendant out in the open where Belvera can snatch it. The dysfunctional parents (the mother seems to not understand what 'having a job' entails, while the father can't seem to muster up enough charisma to stop being a cypher- seriously, that smile he gives at the end really does give the impression of a robot doing its best to imitate an emotion), mommy Mothra aggravatingly cools her heels on a mountaintop for several MINUTES as her baby is getting chewed to pieces and spewing geysers of blood, Lora WON'T STOP SHOUTING ABOUT EVERYTHING, and Fairy- Fairy is the worst. Fairy cannot hit the broadside of a barn that he is actually sitting on. If I had to take fictional characters to war, I would put Willy Gilligan and Gomer Pyle in the front lines before I put Fairy in. Just... ugh. Fairy, I liked you, but oh man, learn to aim.
So, the Shobijin- I mean, the Cosmos- I mean, the Elias... oh, COME ON, just pick a name and stick with it, Toho- are a strange bunch. Moll was cool enough; Lora got on my nerves with her constant freaking out, as mentioned above (also, was she Sailor Moon cosplaying?). Belvera seemed to have taken acting lessons from Bandora (Rita Repulsa, to those only versed in the English version), and her laughter was painfully fake. (MY wife suggested that she seemed like someone desperately trying to convince everyone that she was enjoying things and had the upper hand no matter what happened- like, if she dropped a hammer on her foot, she'd grab it and start jumping up and down, but still give that same fake-manic laugh while she did.) Liking one out of three main characters is not a good start.
Then we get to the family- and egads, I really, really started not liking these people. Mommy dearest seemed incapable of saying anything positive (and utilized bad parenting right out of the gate), Wakaba was a manipulative little thief, Taiki was a sadistic little bully in retaliation, and the dad... well, he seemed okay, but again, never made it beyond 'vague cipher.' Underdeveloped to the point of invisibility. (Speaking of which, it is a long stretch to go from 'all moths use camouflage' to 'caterpillar with a cloaking device...', but I digress.)
So, I can't say I though much of the humans. As for the kaiju- well, I already made my feelings on Fairy clear- and he looked terrible, to boot. Like, as if he were an actual-size miniature that the Elias were digitally inserted onto instead of a full-sized prop. I don't understand how a full-sized Fairy could actually look that crummy...
...Especially because Garu-garu looks AMAZING. Garu-garu is the best. He is the true star of this film. I want a Garu-garu film. And then, at the end, they-... *sniff*. I-it's... just not right. You monsters.
Mothra looks decent, while Mothra Leo... well, I didn't care for the look (green wings especially, and the weird Brainiac lights on his forehead), but my wife LOVED him and declared him (her, I guess; this design looks more masculine) to be the best Mothra of them all. (After only really reviewing the Heisei era). The little newborn caterpillar, covered in a sheen of afterbirth, was quite effective- and it was horrifically cringe-inducing seeing her get battered about, especially as a parent. Not cool, man.
Desghidorah... well, I've gone on record that I don't care for the Ghidorah design; I find it uninspired, unemotive, and overused. That said... of all the designs I've seen, this one is probably my favorite. It has a nice girth to it, and it really looks strong and fearsome. (A practical flamethrower helps).
The film starts with a spectacular opening- and it highlights a great score for the movie, as well as sometimes-brilliant effects. (Seriously, some of these scenes make me amazed this is only one year after Destoroyah- and others are downright horrific. More on that below...) Then, however, it cuts straight to the overbearing 'weep, for they cut down the trees; woe to the Earth!' montage. I'm reminded- if I may digress again- of Disney's Pocahontas; during Colors of the Wind, one lyric asks "How high can the sycamore grow? If you cut it down, you'll never know!" It implies some sort of absolute utopia with the land, in which- presumably- the Native Americans lived solely off of what they could pick up off the ground, berries that had already fallen off the trees, critters that had obligingly dropped dead of natural causes; a completely harmony with nature that would leave real human beings dead. Where did those canoes, and teepee frames, and bows, and arrow-shafts come from, if not from felled and chopped trees?
Environmental messages work best, I think, when moderated to reality. "We must be cautious not to clear-cut or deforest; to overdo our lumber harvest" is a good and laudable message, methinks. "It is evil and a terrible tragedy for a tree to be cut down!" aspires to a standard- implied in the Pocahontases and Ferngullys of the world- that has never been matched in human history... that is neither practical, nor logical. It's more dramatic, sure easier to visually communicate, and better for tugging on the heart-strings than 'no, cutting down one tree, or ten, or even fifty is fine so long as you replant afterwards- but cutting down a thousand, or eradicating a forest, or cutting where you'll destroy the eco-system is problematic.' That takes nuance, and is harder to communicate. But it does have the benefit of not being imbecilic, nor instructing children in a ridiculously-unrealistic standard.
From there, the plot leaps in rather quickly- with the discovery of an ancient seal (so, based on the news reports throughout, there are no actual laws in Japan about not destroying priceless archeological relics, so long as you own the land? And of course, EVIL logging corporations would have no compunction about doing so, because they're EVIL, and... how does blowing up that barren rock side help them to harvest trees, again...?), family shenanigans and aerial dogfight (opinions on which are sprinkled throughout above), and Desghidorah's release. (An impressive spectacle).
I must say that the hypnotized father, suicide-bomber-driving a bulldozer full of explosives toward the hillside, was pretty dark- and was one of two times (along with the 'shoes-on-fire, take-my-hand, wearing-that-expression-that-says-I'm-about-to-let-go-and-sacrifice-myself-so-I-don't-drag-you-down-with-me,' scene- apparently, that was just his usual difficulty in emoting facial expressions) that actually had me nervously muttering 'They wouldn't kill off the dad like that- not in a children's film. ...Would they?'
After that, things largely devolve into two major fight scenes, in which Mothra employs questionable tactics, and literally a new power every single time she attacks. Seriously, when did the larva get a throat-beam? We have antennae-lasers, lower blue electrical discharges, upper orange electrical discharges, streaky-fast impact flight, breaking into a stream of moths to attack, downward-vortex force-beams, web spray now enhanced with rainbow lightning, glitter-scale attack, throat beam... and I'm pretty sure I'm just scratching the surface. It's kind of hard to feel threatened for Mothra's safety, or excited about her victory, when she as apparently-unlimited power-sets. Has anyone actually tried to catalogue all of these? It was absurd. A Mothra THIS overpowered, I could see defeating Godzilla *easily.*
In-between the fights, we do get Mothra's sad(ish) death, foreshadowed by the conversation I feel like the Shobijin/Cosmos/Elias ought to have in EVERY Mothra movie-
"We have to call in Mothra!"
"But she's too weak to fight this non-fluffy, non-fragile kaiju with teeth and killers and killer lightning-beams. She'll just die if we bring her here."
"Nonetheless, we shall!"
At least they recognize up-front that Mothra is too weak to take on most of her opponents and is fated to die (then, ironically, introduce a Mothra so power-laden that it feels like she SHOULD be able to take on all comers).
Since this is practically Mothra; The Musical, we get three songs- which, unlike 'Battle for Earth,' the Blu-ray doesn't bother subtitling. GRRRRRRRR. These are clearly dubtitles (as in one scene just after the fairy shootout, the subtitles display about three sentences of questions while the Mother clearly only says 'Wakaba!' on the soundtrack), but I wish they could have put in a little more effort. Likewise, fixed the subtitle where Taiki asks where the larva is going, and the Elias tells him 'no one knows- it's a secret'- then they immediately follow her there and watch.
The effects in this film are a mixed bag, as mentioned before. Many of Mothra's attacks, for instance, are really gorgeous. Fairy Mothra, on the other hand, when he's CG...? *Shudder*. Bluescreening is not great, and that chase sequence around the house... well, it clearly required true 3D capability, and... yeah, it really felt like they attempted it 5-10 years before the technology was truly there. As such, we were stuck with awkward 2D images trying to swoop through a 3D space, and not really matching angles- like a very early sprite-based flight sim. It was rough, if well-intentioned; and it seems we've already reached the bane of 21st-century kaiju films; the fake-motion-blur-while-unrealistic-and-over-smooth-post-manipulation-movements-are-being-applied-to-the-bluescreened-subject era. It's a terrible look, and it doesn't help the over-reaching shootout sequence.
Overall, I'm guessing this had a lower budget than the g-films; even the 'larva swimming at sunset' scene doesn't look nearly as spectacular (the original in Battle for Earth being possibly my favorite stand-alone shot/scene in the Heisei era). Between that, the bluescreening, and the over-ambitious shootout, it's easy to peg this as low-budget... which is what makes the great effects (the opening sequence, Mothra's multi-moth form, Garu-garu) so hard to reconcile. But, presumably, they're examples of stretching the low budget to impressive effect, making them even more commendable.
The fight scenes are good (but a bit too long at the expense of plot), the ending appropriately corny (and what's with that 'cat-clawing' gesture that Wakaba and Lora do at one-another, called-back at the end of the film? Is that some Japanese pop-culture thing that a Westerner just doesn't recognize?), and the moralizing absurdly over-the-top as befits the last five minutes of a daikaiju film.
Still, much as this may have been more a roast than a review, I *did* enjoy the film. It was entertaining, and a fight that lasted too long was still more entertaining to watch than the comparative-doldrum equivalents in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II or Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla. The initially-dysfunctional family, OTT-performances from 2 out of 3 Elias, uneven effects, and general facepalming moments (completely separate from any kidiness of the writing), just served to make it a little more of an MST3K type of appeal, mocking as much as watching, than the typical Heisei Godzilla film. I'm hoping that the writing of RoMII will be a little better, so that it can be pure enjoyment, rather than a mix with eye-rolling.
I certainly didn't expect to have this much to say on the film; I'm looking forward to next week!
eabaker wrote:I'm not sure there's much to be said about this movie that hasn'tr already been covered in two relatively brief posts.
Ha! You'd think so, and for a SANE person, it would be so...