Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992)
aka Gojira vs. Mosura
Article 5679 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-28-2019
Directed by Takao Okawara
Featuring Tetsuyo Bessho, Satomi Kobayashi, Takehiro Murata
Country: Japan
What it is: Kaiju monster mash

Mothra does battle with his evil twin Battra, but what will happen when Godzilla shows up?

With this movie, I return to the Heisei Godzilla cycle, of which this is the fourth. I sense a real drop-off in quality here, at least with the English dub of this one. For one thing, it’s pretty heavy-handed with its message about taking care of the Earth. The plot also feels somewhat tossed together from various other movies; in particular, I’m a little tired of movies where the Cosmos twins are kidnapped by entrepreneurs hoping to use them to make money. The movie does introduce a new monster in the form of Battra, but this monster is little more than an evil version of Mothra. Fortunately, there’s plenty of monster action during the second half of the movie, so that helps balance things out a bit. However, from a story perspective, the series is getting very lazy here.