31 Days, 31 Screams: A New Beginning- Day 14 (Godzilla Vs. Mothra)

GET THESE DAMN MOTHS OUT OF MY ROOM

 Okay, this one was pretty neat. On a bit more of a serious level than our previous two versus kaiju movies, but it delivered the best kaiju action of the three. That's mostly owing to it being 20/30 years ahead of the others, as it was made in 1992, but still. The kaiju action is really good in this one. I enjoyed it, and I'm going to talk a little in-depth about it. But only a little. We've had chats about Godzilla on the blog, of course, and we also poked at the original Mothra. I got to make a total Death Of The Author reading about it being climate change. I don't quite get to do that here, but part of the movie does follow the same beats as the 1961 Mothra movie. Let's take a peek and see what we've got.

The opening wastes no time, really. A meteor comes down from space and wakes Godzilla up from his ocean nap. From there we go into the human story to set up before the big monsters go smashy, and the setup here almost feels like a Raiders Of The Lost Ark scenario. Archeological mission to Infant Island, down-on-his-luck ex-con going with his ex-wife. I kind of like the vibe the movie gives for just a few moments, exploring this strange place and uncovering ancient wall paintings of Mothra. They even do a thing with a spotlight symbol lighting up the place as the sun rises that's a lot like the Map Room thing in Raiders. Then we find a giant goddamned egg, and also the two tiny girls from Mothra! The story they give is not just about Mothra, but a sort of dark mirror to Mothra called Battra. It's absolutely gonzo shit about ancient advanced civilizations and the natural order of the Earth. Again we have the environmental/natural harmony theme going, with Mothra being the protector who can and will fuck you up for fucking with that harmony. Battra's already shown up in Japan and is fucking shit up, by the by, with lightning blasts and other assorted shit. So that's harmony getting fucked with.

Mothra will later fuck with that harmony, but before that her egg gets fucked up by Godzilla. It's a wild scene, they're towing Mothra's egg by boat and Godzilla just shows up to be a giant asshole. Mothra hatches as a grub and we get them throwing down immediately. Battra shows up as well, just to be a huge dick, and this is wild. The three kaiju movies I picked for this year are a 1v1, a 2v1, and a 3-kaiju free-for-all. There's some real neat underwater fighting between Godzilla and Battra and the pair of them sink into a lava fissure until the third act. In the meantime what we get is a mini-reprise of the '61 Mothra. You know, an arch-capitalist wanting to make a shitload of money off the two tiny girls, and the two tiny girls summoning Mothra to FUCK EVERYTHING UP because this greedy bastard's upsetting the natural order. There's a twist when it turns out the ex-con from before stole the girls from the capitalist to try and sell them, but his ex-wife and daughter chew him out for this as Mothra's attacking and he relents and lets Mothra see them to make her stop fucking shit up. 

She cocoons then, and everything seems nice until Godzilla bursts out of Mt. Fuji to fuck shit up. Mothra soon hatches in a pretty visual stunning scene, but Battra has a grisly moth form now too. What follows is even more kaiju throwing down, and it's pretty wild. Moth lasers, moth lightning, and atomic breath galore. There's a scene where Mothra and Battra are on the ground together, seeming to come to some sort of utopian understanding while Godzilla's out for the count. Then Godzilla gets back up and the two of them team up to wreck Godzilla, but in the end Godzilla gets Battra and the pair fall into the ocean, at which point Mothra seals them up with some purifying Mothra dust power or... something. She also gors off into space to stop a meteor that Battra was going to stop in 1999. A lot of this was plot summary, but I had fun with this one. Mothra's a cool kaiju, as is Battra as the dark enlightenment version of her. Godzilla gets some good rampaging in too, if not beaten out by the flying pair, but it's still a fun watch. A good cap to our kaiju marathon. Next is... Well, I haven't decided yet. Find out tomorrow, like I will.