Mothra Vs Godzilla Film Review

When people think of Godzilla's allies they usually think of Mothra and yet nine times out of ten alot of them won't know that the two of them actually started out as rivals. While the film that i'm going to be talking to you all about today wasn't the first time that Mothra appeared in a film it was the first time that she appeared in a Godzilla film and so then join me as I review the film that no joke sees Godzilla get beaten up by Mothra's kids with the film in question being called simply just "Mothra Vs Godzilla" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when a flood causes one of Mothra's eggs to land on an Island it causes a huge media which results in Godzilla reawakening with the only hope to save the egg and Japan being is if some humans can get Mothra to fight and take down the king of the monsters. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured /presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. The films plot is not as bad as it could have been as the plot does have elements in it that work like for example the fact we do get a Mothra who is nearing the end of her life in this film is something that does work as it does give the film some added weight to it's plot. However tho this is still a pretty weak plot and while that is something that you do kind of expect going into a Godzilla film it is something that does stand out here as the film does make this honest to god attempt to be this thought provoking film and yet due to the fact that the films plot is as thin as it is it just doesn't work as well as it could have done and heck you could argue that if the film wasn't trying to be something that it's not then it would be alot more fun to watch as while yes all of the Godzilla films have some form of deeper meaning to them not all of them need it and this is one of those films and while the films plot doesn't suffer because of it is something that does hold it back as it does come out of nowhere in the film which does make it feel like it was added to teach kid a lesson which given the fact that the Godzilla films where becoming more and more popular with kids at this time due to the fac that these films were being released around the holidays is something that does make some form of sense with the plot of this film also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Akira Takarada as Ichiro Sakai and Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster star Yuriko Hoshi as Junko Nakanishi. Also starring in this film is Hiroshi Koizumi as Professor Shunsuke Miura , Yū Fujiki as Jiro Nakamura , The Peanuts as The Shobijin , Kenji Sahara as Jiro Torahata , Jun Tazaki as Maruta , Yoshifumi Tajima as Kumayama , Akira Tani as Amimoto , Ikio Sawamura as A Kannushi and Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured /presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. Again much like with the films plot you don't usually expect there to be good acting in a Japanese Godzilla film which does make it all the more surprising when a film like this one does have some really good acting in it granted it's not as good as the acting in the previous Godzilla film was but in saying that tho you can tell that there is more of an effort to give these films some really good acting as alot of this films actors really do knock out of the park in this film performance wise. With the best actor in this film being Akira Takarada as Ichiro Sakai as it would have been very easy to say that Haruo is the best actor in this film but with Akira he is the films more emotional core as he does get more of a chance to show off just what it is that he could do as an actor with him making what could have been seen as being a really boring character be all the more fun to really watch as while the character of Ichiro isn't all that interesting how Akira plays him is as you never really know just what type of a performance that he's going to give you from scene to scene and yet even with that in mind it always works with him having this natural charm that does shine through in his final performance. With the acting that's in this very film really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so good that all this film actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

As with any Godzilla film be it American or Japanese you don't go into it for the human characters with them usually being the dullest part of any Godzilla film. The same thing is also kind of true for this films human characters as well with alot of them just being very dull and flat cardboard cutout characters  which is sadly the case for our main heroes as none of them have anything interesting about them this is despite the fact that there role in the film is alot more interesting then the human villains role is as our main heroes do get to have alot more interactions with Mothra and The Shobijin but in saying this tho there is nothing that makes them standout a none of them are giving any memorable scenes or character traits. The same thing could also be true for the films main human villains as both of them are just the same character in that they are both rich and greedy man who wish to profit off of Mothra's egg with the only difference being the fact one of them is skinny and that's really it and while yes the villains do have what is perhaps the most dark scene in these early Godzilla films where one of them shoots the over in the back for trying to steal his money only to then get crushed when Godzilla destroys the hotel they are in it doesn't change the fact that these two characters are the same character type as heck the makers of this film could have made the skinnier villain someone who is this rich busisness man type who is perfectly willing to kill someone to get the deal done whereas the other could be more comedic and more lighthearted with him yes being greedy but he has a line that he won't cross, granted this won't make them memorable characters but it is something that will make them stand out as being different characters rather then instead just doing the same character over again in the exact same film as that's just lazy screenwriting. 

The Mothra that we see in this film was quite frankly really well done from a design point of view as while she is just a puppet on string the makers of this film do get alot of mileage out of it. By having the character do things that would be impossible to do if the character was an in suit character like for example landing on a rock with the puppets even looking quite cute which is something that dies make alot of sense as the character was created to be a girl with the only thing that doesn't quite work about the character also being the fact that she is a string character as that does make creating action scenes with her in them alot more harder to do as there is only so much that you can do with a string puppet and to this films credit the makers of this fil do do the best that they can with the puppet version of Mothra. The only thing that doesn't quite work is the fact that the makers of this film don't do anything interesting with her this is despite the fact that Mothra is a fun character and is a solid enough person to go up against Godzilla as they are polar opposites with Mothra being about spreading love and life in the world and Godzilla is all about destroying it therefor it would have made sense for the makers of this film to have Mothra agree to fight Godzilla early on in the film as he is a threat to life therefor she would of course want to go and protect and whilst the film isn't hurt by having her show up late to fight him infact it is a good way of creating tension it is also something that des feel like it's against who she is as a character but given the fact that Mothra up until this point in time had only appeared in the one film it is possible that her character was still being fleshed out when this film was being made, with the character herself being a really strong foe for Godzilla to go up against as she does present a unique challenge to him as she can fly to avoid his attacks but at the same time that doesn't always work well in the films favor.

As was mentioned in this review this film does get pretty dark during it's third act which was something that was unexpected. As we do see the two villains Kumayama and Jiro Torahata fight over money with Kumayama even managing to make Jiro bleed quite badly which was something that very rarely if every saw in these Godzilla films as nine times out of ten the characters would just get knocked out but then later on in the same scene we also see Kumayama get shot in the back by Jiro which was again something that never saw in Godzilla which was something that made it all the more shocking and giving the film this sort of edge was something that did work for the film as it does make us believe that any one of these characters can get killed of even if it was something that happened in the films third act. Heck one could even make the argument that the films opening scene was darker in tone as that opening typhoon was actually based off of areal storm that being Super Typhoon Vera which killed around five thousand people and left forty thousand injured and a whopping 1.5 million people homeless and therefor whilst it is something that does make it perfect to have in this film and play a large part in the films plot it was still something that would have been quite recent for people and it is something that would have made the film quite controversial for the time and yet it is something that does oddly make sense to have in this film as alot of these early Godzilla film does have there being some sort of attack happen at sea to start the film off and therefor having this island by battered by this storm is something that does feel very in keeping with the rest of the films with us even getting some really impressive special effects work out of it all of which do combine to make that scene look as good as it could have been with the film itself being one of the more darker in tone Godzilla films in the process. 

Speaking of the films effects that are alot of effects in this film all of which feature The Shobijin that do make you wonder how they managed to pull them. As thanks to the book Godzilla: The First 70 Years we do know that the scene of The Shobijin first escaping the hotel room was done on a large set with the camera places above them which is a good little trick as it makes the actors in the scene seem small and the set itself seem regular sized by comparison however there are alot more scenes in the film that are hard to wok out just how they did it like for example when The Shobijin are in there box and there interacting the real life human characters that is an effect that would have been super hard to pull of today let alone back in the sixties. Whilst the scene with them on Infant Island singing there song in the garden is relatively easy to do as it's just the actors filmed infront of a projection with the background being projected behind them that is about the only effect that is easy to work this is something that does make for a good looking effect with it being something that does hold up but the best ones in this film are the ones where you don't know how they did it and with the being next to no information about how alot of those effects were created it is likely that we'll never no which if that is the case then great as it does mean that we can all guess how they did and as along as it 's done by computers then we would technically be write, this is something that does make you fall in love with the art of film making all of over again as now we the audience get the chance to step into the shows of the people that were watching this film when it first came and wonder just as they did how alot of this films effects were made and feel like kids again this is something that we rarely get the chance to do these days as nine times out of ten the correct answer is always that it was done by computers but back in the sixties that wouldn't have been possible and because of that the makers of this film had to come up with creative ideas which did result in this film getting alot of really good effects.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time exactly one hour and twenty eight minuets and fifty seven seconds. Which is pretty much the bogstanderd running time for a Japanese Godzilla film at this point in time and again to be fair whilst this film could have done with being an extra ten minuets just to make the human character more interesting it wasn't something that was needed and one could argue that the making the film even five minuets longer would be stretching it's admittedly thin plot line even thinner as now we would need to stop the plot to have the scenes with the human characters whereas in the film as it is whilst the human characters aren't that interesting the film has be all about advancing the plot of the film forward with this film having more then enough plot thee to really cover that amount of running time in the first place. With the film not really using it's running time all that wisely as the film doesn't take the time to fully develop it's plot with the makers of this film stopping it's plot to feature the human characters alot of the time with alot of the stuff from the human characters just not being that interesting to watch with alot of there scenes feeling more like filler as that's all they are there for just to pad out the films running time with the makers of this film being more focused in giving us bad comedy scene with the films characters then they are in giving us a well developed plot. Heck the same thing is also true for the films character as whilst it is expected that neither Godzilla or Mothra get any kind of character development the same thing is also true for the films human characters as none of them get any kind of character with this being something that really doesn't help them out as if these character did have some kind of character development then it really would make them all the more interesting however tho the makers of this film seemed to be more focused on making Godzilla get beat by kids then they are in giving it's human characters some actual character development but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film tat really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With the films action scenes being some of the best parts in the whole film as it will always be really cool seeing Godzilla taking on another monster all the while stopping around Japan and that is where this film does shine as we do get to see Godzilla destroying Japan in really fun ways be it him just stomping around or him just flat walking through a building as if it was made out of paper either way all of the destruction scenes in this film are really fun to watch. With the best action scene in the whole film being the scene where Godzilla takes on the adult Mothra as this is something that the whole film had been building towards and whilst yes it could have been alot more better then what it was it was still a really good fight with Mothra even getting the upper hand on Godzilla a couple time just just by using her wings to spread some poison into him which was a good idea on Mothra's part with the thing that makes it stand out being the fact that Mothra is actually dieing and she knows that this fight with Godzilla will be her last and yet she still give it her fall and while she does have to leave the fight so she can die it still doesn't change the fact that she did push Godzilla to his limits with the rest of the films action scenes being just as good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.  

Overall whilst yes there are alot of faults to find with this film those faults don't really stop this film from being enjoyable heck if anything they do add to the charm of the film and with this film being the last film where Godzilla was a flat out bad guy it is a decent enough film to see that side of him come to an end on in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad thigs that are in this very film in this very review and a such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Wikizilla and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Wikizilla this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Wikizilla are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Wikizilla really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.