PodBill
Just what I expected
Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Jakoba
True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
JLRVancouver
As was the previous instalment in the "Mothra Rebirth" trilogy, this movie is clearly intended for children. The main (human) characters are three kids and there are pretty fairies in brightly coloured outfits riding a 'cute' moth, a non-threatening 'evil' fairy riding a 'cute' dragon, goofy comic-relief 'bad guys', a Furby-like creature with which one of the children bonds, a monster to fight, and lots of coloured lights, rainbows, and sparkles. The somewhat incoherent plot finds Earth once again threatened by a monster (Dagahra) reacting to our environmental negligence and, once again, the two fairies recruiting Mothra to defend us. The kids (and the comic-relief teen-agers being manipulated by Belvera, the cackling evil fairy) travel to an ancient castle to find a secret treasure that can defeat Dagahra (and his horde of predatory starfish). There is lots of running through castle corridors and couple of fights between the kaiju before a colourful Deus ex Machina climax, in which Mothra reveals even more magical abilities. While I am clearly not the target audience, I found the movie a dull and trite rehash of 1996's "Rebirth of Mothra". I was also watching an indifferently English-dubbed version which I'm sure didn't help. Other than the emergence of the ancient castle from the ocean and some early city wrecking, both of which were reasonably well done, the special effects were unimpressive. Dagahra looked like a large plastic toy and, even by 1970's suit-mation standards, was neither 'realistic' nor interesting. Mothra continues to the trend to be more colourful and now boasts a variety of 'energy weapons" (?) that seem to emanate from multiple places on her body (resulting in kaiju battles that are primarily repetitious light shows) as well the ability to turn into both some kind of flying-fish morph or a flock of little Mothras. There is also some kind of spiritual-tribble called "Ghogo", which will appeal to the very young or lovers of cloyingly-cute fur balls and who has a special healing power which I won't describe (but may result in a lot of sniggering amongst older boy viewers). I can't judge this movie through the eyes of a child, but I do watch a lot of children's movies and enjoy kaiju of all qualities, and IMO, "Rebirth of Mothra II" is insipid, uninteresting live action film that is just a notch above a forgettable cartoon.
gigan-92
The sequel to the 1996 "Rebirth of Mothra" and like its predecessor it is a mixed bag. In all technical reasoning, this movie's characters suck more ass than the first one's. For some odd reason, the writers thought it was a good idea to mimic the 60s Gamera movies and center the film on child characters. Thing is, 60s Gamera sucked ass, so how was it in any way a good idea? In doing so the human angle is entirely botched from the start, and ruins the movie's remote chance of standing up to Godzilla. It's even more painful in the dubbed version, so please, if you can and at all just stay away from the English dubbed DVD. That means you Sony.It's a real shame, considering almost every other aspect is done quite well. Mothra Leo is a beautiful rendition of the giant moth, and Dagahra is an impressive foe, looking pretty bad ass. The fight scenes are pretty well executed, although there's some over kill with Mothra and all those laser beams. The temple of Ninai Kanai itself is an awesome miniature and there's actually city destruction in this one. And composer Toshiyuki Watanabe is no Akira Ifukube, but the score is well done and I have to admit some moments were made truly awesome because of it. And let's not forget the final battle where (Aqua) Mothra delivers the bad-ass final blow. I enjoyed the monster scenes and special effects quite a bit, but when the monsters are not on screen I get annoyed.
The_Depressed_Star_Wars_fan
This movie is okay. As always lets star with the plot. Three kids join Mothra's priestesses on a journey to find the Lost Treasure of Nilai Kinai, an ancient lost "under-the-sea" civilization in hopes of preserving the Earth's declining environment. Pollution has unyielded the evil monster Dagahra (Who reminds me of Godzilla for some reason), a monster seemingly too powerful for Mothra to vanquish. As a result, the environment's fate lies in the hands of the Lost Treasure. (Special Thanks to Oliver Chu for the summary.) Well it isn't as ridicules as the plot to the other films in the trilogy. But still pretty damn silly. I guess this movie is trying to have some kind of save the environment theme, like GODZILLA VS HEADORAH. Which was another weird movie. Actually in this movie Dagahra is a lot like Hedorah, because of the fact that he like lives of of pollution, or some like that. Isn't that interesting. The effects in this movie are decent, better than the effects in the first movie. But still nothing special, like AVATAR or THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. The dubbing in this movie is awful. That can pretty much be expected. So all in all this is an okay movie probably better for the kids though.
Jss0266
First, I love the majority of Toho films. All the silly Godzilla flicks from the 70's and so on, but this film is taking it to a new level. Granted, I'll give it a 5 out of 10, but whats the deal with Mothra and all the powers it now has?....AquaMothra?...give me a break. Both creatures had too many different weapons that weren't explained nor seemed to be a dominant in battle. The effects were good, better than most films of this type, but I would have liked to see more land-based battles, because a moth in water doesn't cut it for me. Dagahra was a unique and interesting creature, so hopefully he'll appear again. After seeing the "Rebirth of Mothra", this was kind of a letdown and a little boring at the end. Hopefully Rebirth 3 is better.
