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.

Most people would think this movie is made for children, and it is. Toho has a tradition of making kaijyu movies for children on summer vacation each year, and this was one of them. But the movie is good on its own right with brilliant cinematography, good special effects, and story plot which only the Japanese would be daring enough to come up with. The plot is telling about the destruction of environment, and this awakens the monster Dagara which an Atlantis like civilization called Ely Kanai have created 12000 years ago to protect the environment, but has turned evil. Dagara's awakening also awakens what is known as the treasure of Ely Kanai called the Gorgo. Three elementary school children of Ishigaki island finds Gorgo and wonders what it is. Mothra's companion Elias and their evil sister Belvera shows up, Elias to help the children and to save the earth from Dagara and the other to capture Gorgo and use it to destroy the earth.

Belvera claims that humans are useless and keeps destroying earth's habitat and deserves to go extinct. Elias has the opposing view that they still have qualities worth saving.

When all American movie studios were busy making very dark movies such as the Batman series (which still continues today) which is based on some sort of amoral intent on the villain's part, or revenge and anger for their motive, Japan was cranking out this brilliant (I mean brilliant cinematography) movie which had positive message towards our children about the earth's environment (The first Rebirth of Mothra had message in that vein also). I bet no one in American movie studio would even consider such plot seriously, but which one has more positive message (to our children and to us) ? The movie is uplifting, and is worth enjoying. I give it high marks for bucking the trend of dreary dark movies.

This movie is the first sequel to the first solo effort following the Hesei Godzilla series. Like the first one, this movie is directed toward kids. In this movie, three kids are searching for a treasure of an underwater civilization while Mothra battles an underwater monster called Dagala, who was a product of the civilization. This movie has a very fast pace and some really good special effects. Dagala is an impressive monster as well. However, the special FX crew went way overkill on the monsters' powers. I've never seen so many different types of energy weapons from both combatants. I felt like I was watching a light show instead of kaiju fight sometimes. The underwater Mothra was also too much. This movie also contains some corny scenes (i.e. "jumping" over the chasm and the water slide scene). Overall, this movie is a fast-paced kaiju film with some good special FX and extended fight scenes. However, it does not match the epic quality that the Godzilla series reached.