A meteor strike both wakes Godzilla and uncovers Mothraās egg. It is also the final straw for Battra, who heads toward Japan to wreak havoc. A poor Indiana Jones stand-in, his ex-wife, and a salaryman head to Infant Island to check out the egg, and end up recreating as many Indiana Jones scenes as could be shoehorned in. They also end up with two taking fairies. It seems, the fairies explain, that they are the last survivors of a wonderful, ancient race that was protected by Mothra. Well, wonderful until they decided to drain the ālife forceā from the Earth (Mothra not looking so swell now, is she?). The Earth responded by creating Battra, a black Mothra, to defend it, and the civilization was drowned. Now, with humans destroying the Earth once again, Battra is back to save it, and Mothra is backā¦forā¦reasons. Alsoā¦Godzilla.
A lose remake of 1961ās Mothra, with an added dark moth, Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth has little for Godzilla to do, which makes sense since he wasnāt in the first draft. Toho was going to make a Mothra movie but decided their Godzilla franchise needed some familiar names in it. So Godzilla got written in and feels written in.
Also written in was a romantic comedy plot because market research said they needed to get more women and kids to buy tickets, and the best way to do that was to add a deadbeat dad and a put-upon woman with a child. Well, Godzilla films have had worse human subplots. The couple makes little sense in the film (Why did they need Indie to go to the island instead of any of hundreds of other better informed choices and what exactly was he going to do there? Who is he trying to sell the fairies to? Why does mom drag her kid into danger zones?), but there are so many other things that make less sense that it is hard to pick on the movie for that. Now, me not liking them and having no interest in them getting back together, thatās a problem worth picking on.
The other humans are unnecessary, as usual in Godzilla films. The salaryman and his insane boss end up not affecting the plot (which is odd since they directly map onto characters in Mothra and Godzilla vs Mothra, where the corporate types matter a great deal). The annoying psychic girl that infests all the Heisei era Godzilla films helps to find the fairies with her magic powers, but could have been cut without comment. Every other human simply stands in front of a screen and comments on Godzilla stomping on things or on how humans are destroying the environment. As a firm believer in the latter message, even I was annoyed by how it was hammered home. Partly, that was due to the fact that the film wants us to side with Mothra, but really Battra should be the good guy (good moth?). Itās Battra who is trying to save the Earth. To keep with the symbolism, Iād like to have seen Battra wipe out the human race.
The monster carnage is about what one would expect for a 1990s Godzilla film. The Godzilla suit (suits as the big guy changes his appearance mid-movie) isnāt bad and Mothra is better than sheād ever been, which isnāt saying much. The Battra worm is, at times, a guy in a suit, which looks about as well as one would expect. If you can get past the puppets and suits and lack of leg movement and horribly fake bites and wounds, I suppose the combat isn’t bad. To give Mothra something other than wind-powers, she now shoots beams. So does Battra. I guess thatās something that giant monsters just do. So if you like beams, you’ve got something to look forward to.
To keep the budget low, there arenāt many people in the streets, which makes the city-crushing unimportant. Thereās little in the way of screaming citizenry dodging falling masonry. Itās just a guy in a suit fighting two moth puppets. It looks OK, but is unengaging, which is a good description of the film.
At least the music is good.