A final send off to the evil Godzilla before Toho Studios morphed him into a defender of the Earth, Mothra vs. Godzilla stands as one of the franchise's highlights. Even with the rather primitive effects of the day, the climatic battle between the two giants is a classic and flawlessly executed. It's rightfully deserving of praise.
Following two years after King Kong vs. Godzilla, a campy, fun giant monster romp, Mothra's defense of her egg is in serious contrast with the action of the previous entry. Godzilla returns to his evil, hateful, lumbering self in his quest to take out the egg containing the insects twin larvae. A recognizable staff of Japanese special effect masters including Eiji Tsuburaya, Akira Watanabe and Teruyoshi Nakano bring the creatures to life better than any other film in the series.
Surprsingly, this film does focus on its human element. While there are some stunning miniature sets destroyed in the early moments along with a few military strikes, the storyline paces itself into a satire on human greed. Yoshifumi Tajima plays a sly businessman, purchasing Mothra's egg after it washes onto the Japanese coast to use as nothing more than an attraction. His performance sells the over-the-top character, leading to a deserved death by the one man he trusted to partner with.
The Japanese version also introduces a nuclear element, absent entirely from King Kong vs. Godzilla. While the U.S. cut makes a few brief mentions of the implications, the message is held together better by the time the cast makes their way to Mothra's devastated island. While the set never reached the scale director Ishiro Honda, the barren lands of Infant Island try to show what nuclear tests have done to a small group of people. The impact is there even if the sets (with obvious matte painting backgrounds) do not.
Mothra vs. Godzilla is one of the rare few in the Showa era of Godzilla films to make the human drama work without veering off into a bizarre and oftentimes ridiculous angles. It's a believable backdrop to the non-stop monster action that finishes rather early in the script to give the creatures the final act to themselves. That begins a showcase of every effect the Japanese film industry had available.
The suit used for Godzilla was heavily modified, as it usually was for each new outing before cost cutting stopped the tradition in the 1970s. An accidental success is Godzilla's upper lip which came loose early in the shoot. By letting it flop around, it gives the creature and extra sense of motion during close-ups, which are frequent. Limited bulk gives the monster a streamlined look, with a menacing face adding to one of suit actor Haruo Nakajima's finest efforts. At one point, the head catches fire and Nakajima keeps moving, all of this captured on film.
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