Watch Mothra For Free

Very disappointing...

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Investigating the mysterious survival of a shipwrecked crew who had been exposed to radiation, an expedition (including the usual 'resourceful reporter' characters) lands on an ostensibly uninhabited tropical Island only to find a native culture who worship a deity called 'Mothra'. They also encounter two miniature women, who as it turns out, are fairy acolytes of the native god. The villainous capitalist Clark Nelson (Jerry Ito) who sponsored the expedition returns to the island and kidnaps the fairies, bringing them to Tokyo where they are forced to perform in his" Secret Fairies Show". The girls warn the reporters that they have a psychic link with Mothra, who will come to rescue them. Sure enough, an immense caterpillar appears and lays waste to much of Tokyo before cocooning in the wreckage of the Tokyo Tower but Nelson, who has escaped to his homeland of "Rolisica' (presumably a conflation of Russia and America), ignores pleas to return the girls to their home. The caterpillar expupates as a giant moth who continues to search for the girls, ultimately leading to Nelson's well deserved comeuppance and a happy ending (if you ignore billions of yen in property damage). "Mothra" (and her sequel 1964's "Godzilla vs the Thing") are among the best of Toho's daikaiju films. Similar to the creature in "Gorgo" (which came out the same year) Mothra is presented as a sympathetic character and the destruction that she brings about is not wanton or mindless, but a response (albeit overwhelming) to an injustice. The movie is very well done with a strong story and good human characters (admittedly somewhat stereotypical) supporting the titular monster who, in both her forms, is imaginative, engaging, and very well executed. The scenes of mayhem and destruction as Tokyo, and later "New Kirk City" in Rolisica are destroyed, are excellent, especially the scene of the larva spinning its cocoon against a backdrop of a ruined Tokyo. The two fairies, who in some form or another accompany Mothra in most of her movie outings, are played by the singing twins "The Peanuts" (Emi and Yumi Ito) who also star in "Godzilla vs the Thing" and "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1964), and (IMO) are the best of the various singers who have played the roles over the years. The film's score is excellent and introduces the iconic "Mothra's Song", which is heard in many of the later Mothra outings. The benevolent giant moth is one of Toho's most popular and enduring kaiju characters and appears in twelve more films (as of this writing), generally as a friend, ally, or guardian (except, or course, when her brain is taken over by malevolent space aliens). This, her debut film, is an outstanding example of Toho's skill in producing kaiju eiga and is well worth watching by anyone willing to suspend their disbelief long enough to watch a film about a colossal moth and just enjoy the spectacle and the story.

Reminding myself of the time that a former employer told me he tried to get his teenaged sons to watch Godzilla and their response that the monster was nothing more than a man in a rubber suit, I went into "Mothra" expecting mediocre special effects, bad dubbing with stereotypical Japanese accents while speaking English (indeed, all the "l's are pronounced as "r's" and vice versa), and too much exposition and not enough science fiction. Yes, enough of those elements are there, but like the first "Godzilla" in retrospect, the film is actually quite enjoyable.When some stranded Japanese are picked off the mountain range of a remote Pacific island, their rescue reveals that there's something going on the island which requires further research. Upon their return, they discover a beautiful jungle past the rocky mountain range where two foot high princesses are worshiped by jungle natives. The princesses are abducted and begin their song which is actually a call to their rescue to a mysterious creature named Mothra that the natives who survive do an exotic musical number to in order for the creature in the giant egg to break through and rescue the two beauties.These lovely ladies are put on display in a freak show, coming out in a floating Cinderella coach like vehicle wearing obvious doll clothes. In fact, when the life-sized Japanese men pick the girls up, they are obviously dark-haired dolls the size of barbies, and when the military attack the invading monster (a giant caterpillar), the tanks are obviously kid's toys as well. Mothra is seen hatching, swimming across the ocean, destroying a navy vessel and finally slithering across Japan like a slug. Finally, she spins a cocoon which is scorched by the navy and is let loose with her giant wing span creating winds that threaten to destroy the country.Cheesy fun, "Mothra" is a film that can be looked at both nostalgically for the type of fun cinema that us baby boomers had growing up before computer effects took over and how more was made out of less. You don't leave a film like this feeling like you need a bottle of aspirin to get over the headache that the loud noises leave you with, and there's also a lot left to the imagination as well. The two Japanese princesses are extremely sweet, sort of a stereotype of Japanese women as totally subservient, while the villains are extremely one dimensional, like the Japanese soldiers of those 1940's World War II propaganda films. At one point, they are all laughing maniacally, but like the old saying goes, "He who laughs first ends up laughing last."

This not best M.O.T.R.A movie. Some of the sequels are like the second one Godzilla vs M.O.T.R.A, or the third one G.H.I.D.O.R.A.H the three headed monster, or the forth one Godzilla and M.O.T.H.R.A vs the sea monster. But it's still good movie.Some people go to an island that as bin polluted nuclear radiation. They find I giant moth. And some bad guys that come with them take something the belongs to it. I can't remember what it was an egg I think. Anyway these bad guy take something that belongs to M.O.T.H.R.A and he follows them back to Tokyo were he goes on a rampage. It is not as good as the 5th movie Destroy all monsters. And it is not as good as the 6th movie Godzilla vs G.I.G.A.N. But it still a good movie. See it. Great story line. Great movie. All the M.O.T.H.R.A movies are great see all of them.

Shipwreck survivors are found on Beiru, an island previously used for atomic tests. Amazingly free of radiation effects, they believe they were protected by a special juice given to them by the natives.Nothing much to say about this one. I only knew Mothra as an adversary to Godzilla and was interested in seeing the film where he debuts and predates his epic fight with the lizard of destruction. It is a good story and gets to the heart of the Mothra myth with the singing fairies that summon him.While maybe not as iconic as Godzilla, Mothra is a kaiju worthy of his own film series (which he has), and those interested in Toho's work really ought to check it out.