Tag: Sayaka Yamaguchi

Mothra 2: The Undersea Battle (1997, Miyoshi Kunio)

Mothra 2: The Undersea Battle is incredibly disappointing. It should be glorious in its stupidity–Mothra at one point turns into a giant fish-moth. Or is it moth-fish? There’s an underwater city raised up. There’s a furry E.T. or Gizmo-type creature and it’s got magical piss. Mothra 2 should be entertaining at the very least and it’s not. It’s never entertaining. Not even on the rare occasion something competent is going on.

There are numerous problems, but director Miyoshi plays the biggest part in the film’s badness. He’s not good with actors, he’s not inventive with special effects, either he doesn’t pace action sequences well or he doesn’t know how to cut corners well. Mothra 2 is incredibly cheap. There’s one miniature city and it’s this pyramid thing from a lost city a la Atlantis. It’s real boring looking, even though it’s got to be enormous because Mothra and the evil kaiju fight on it.

Oh, the evil kaiju. It’s a really dumb looking flying thing with four legs. It’s a bad suit. It’s a very, very bad suit. Mothra’s nothing great this time out either, but at least there’s something going on with it effects-wise–the flapping of the wings alone give it some personality. The bad kaiju has none. It’s a terrible design and a dumb story.

The fairies are boring–their subplot with the evil third sister is way too underdeveloped, with Miyoshi instead doing these terrible chase sequences. Mothra 2 is full of lousy composite shots and even lousier CG backdrops. Most of the movie is the three obnoxious little kid leads running around the interior of the pyramid in a mix of sets and CG and it’s just poorly done. There’s no sense of scale, for the visuals or for the story. The giant monsters attack Japan and no one cares except these little kids. And the human villains are these two guys who know the little girl lead’s mom.

But nothing can prepare for the last reveal in the film, because Mothra 2 is all about the future. It’s a kid’s movie, it’s “environmentally conscious,” it’s really weird and it’s a bad weird.

Watanabe Toshiyuki’s awful music doesn’t help matters, though I am going to skip listing the bad performances. It’s not the actors’ faults, it’s this movie. Mothra 2 just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work at all.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Miyoshi Kunio; written by Suetani Masumi; director of photography, Sekiguchi Yoshinori; music by Watanabe Toshiyuki; produced by Kitayama Hiroaki; released by Toho Company Ltd.

Starring Kobayashi Megumi (Moll), Yamaguchi Sayaka (Lora), Hano Aki (Belvera), Mitsushima Hikari (Uranai), Otake Masaki (Kyohei), Maganao Shimada (Yoji), Okuno Atsushi (Kotani), Okayama Hajime (Nagase) and Nonami Maho (Princess Yuna).

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Mothra (1996, Yoneda Okihiro)

Mothra has the arguably unlikely problem of having way too many good ideas at once. For over an hour, director Yoneda is able to keep all the balls in the air. Sure, things fall apart in the third act, but the pieces are still glorious and the first two acts are stupendous.

It’s a kids movie with giant monster fights. Suetani Masumi’s script acknowledges a handful of kaiju standards, but doesn’t try to fit them in. Even with a giant monster fight taking up the entire second half (or eighty-five percent of it), Yoneda and Suetani never get too far away from the kids. Yes, Mothra is the kids movie with the relatable kids having the adventure of their lives.

Only it starts–before the kaiju arrive in force–as this crazy kids movie where Fujisawa Maya gets evil powers and imprisons her mom and attacks her brother. Futami Kazuki plays the brother. He and Fujisawa are effective together, which is what Yoneda worries about more with the kids than good performances. He gets good performances out of their parents, especially mom Takahashi Hitomi. Nashimoto Kenjirô plays the dad. He’s a bit of a doof who works too much, which pisses off Takahashi. She’s got to worry about her family, worry about monsters, rescue her brainwashed husband. She’s got lots to do.

I’ve forgotten to mention the three sister fairies. Two good, one bad. It’s absurd and goofy and sort of wonderful. There are big action sequences with these doll-sized fairies flying around the family’s house having a laser battle. Yoneda is bold with these sequences. He’s not enthusiastic exactly, as he seems too aware of his budgetary constraints, but he’s definitely bold. These action scenes are good. They just have technical problems.

Then there’s Mothra, of course. She gets the hero role starting in the second act, doubling it up because there’s a larva version too. Yoneda goes for iconic with a lot of the Mothra shots, something Watanabe Toshiyuki’s score helps with a lot.

Mothra is a wild time with a weak third act. The narrative closes off far more naturally at the end of the second act, leaving the film scrambling to reestablish itself. It’s finish is rocky, but more successful than not.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Yoneda Okihio; written by Suetani Masumi; director of photography, Sekiguchi Yoshinori; edited by Ogawa Nobuo; music by Watanabe Toshiyuki; produced by Kitayama Hiroaki; released by Toho Company Ltd.

Starring Futami Kazuki (Taiki), Fujisawa Maya (Wakaba), Kobayashi Megumi (Moll), Yamaguchi Sayaka (Lora), Takahashi Hitomi (Mrs. Goto), Nashimoto Kenjirô (Mr. Goto), Tanaka Hiroko (Shiraishi) and Hano Aki (Belvera).

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