Godzilla, his son, Rodan, Mothra, Gorosaurus, Manda, Baragon, Kumonga, and Varan... 9
monsters in one movie! What more could you ask for? You know, besides more
screentime for each of them. That would be nice.
This movie is kinda like the Avengers, in a way. All the kaiju featured here were introduced over the span of several movies, and now they’re all coming together for one big movie to kick @$$ together. So, one could say that Toho used the Avengers setup first... before it was ever heard of!
Anyway, this was supposed to be the big finish to all of Toho’s kaiju movies. It had been 14 years since they started it, so now they wanted to end it. Of course, now we know that didn’t happen. There were 19 more movies made after this.
The film takes place in 1999... from a 1968 perspective. It’s not as high tech as a lot of movies from the time period would portray it. It was actually just about 10 years off for most of the gadgets. There was a sort of Ipad thing, and facetime phone calls. The really futuristic stuff was with all the spaceships, the fact that we had a base on the moon, laser guns, that sort of thing. Oh, and the U.N. rounded up all the kaiju onto one single island. That can’t possibly go wrong. It’s not like something is going to happen where the island’s barriers are shut off and the kaiju are set loose to attack the world.... oh wait.... that’s exactly what happens.
I honestly don’t know how they didn’t see this coming. It’s the year 1999, so Jurassic Park was already made. Heck, the sequel was made by that year too! That island was Kaiju Park. And now they are burning all of the major cities to the ground. Good job, U.N.! That was your idea!
What force let all the monsters off the island? An alien race known as the Kilaak. The aliens have a name this time! Not like Planet X, though. But apparently both the Kilaaks and the Planet X people use saucer shaped spaceships. Huh. Anyway, the Kilaak have taken control of the kaiju through some sort of wave. I don’t think they announced to the world what kind of wave, like Planet X did. But of course, they find a way to free the kaiju again.
Pretty soon, they all gather in one spot for the final showdown. The Kilaak unleash their own monster... and it turns out to be King Ghidorah. Wow, he sure does get his mind controlled by aliens a lot, doesn’t he?
It’s not really a fair fight. In the past, he lost to just Godzilla and Rodan alone, and here, he’s against 6 or 7 other monsters. Poor guy. At least it’s fun to see him get put into the ground. Literally. They literally stomp him into the dirt. It’s one of the best kaiju fights ever. The wirework is amazing. There are so many wires going around, all really close together, I’m wondering how many times they had to retake those shots from getting tangled. Regardless, it is a masterpiece of suit acting.
This movie is kinda like the Avengers, in a way. All the kaiju featured here were introduced over the span of several movies, and now they’re all coming together for one big movie to kick @$$ together. So, one could say that Toho used the Avengers setup first... before it was ever heard of!
Anyway, this was supposed to be the big finish to all of Toho’s kaiju movies. It had been 14 years since they started it, so now they wanted to end it. Of course, now we know that didn’t happen. There were 19 more movies made after this.
The film takes place in 1999... from a 1968 perspective. It’s not as high tech as a lot of movies from the time period would portray it. It was actually just about 10 years off for most of the gadgets. There was a sort of Ipad thing, and facetime phone calls. The really futuristic stuff was with all the spaceships, the fact that we had a base on the moon, laser guns, that sort of thing. Oh, and the U.N. rounded up all the kaiju onto one single island. That can’t possibly go wrong. It’s not like something is going to happen where the island’s barriers are shut off and the kaiju are set loose to attack the world.... oh wait.... that’s exactly what happens.
I honestly don’t know how they didn’t see this coming. It’s the year 1999, so Jurassic Park was already made. Heck, the sequel was made by that year too! That island was Kaiju Park. And now they are burning all of the major cities to the ground. Good job, U.N.! That was your idea!
What force let all the monsters off the island? An alien race known as the Kilaak. The aliens have a name this time! Not like Planet X, though. But apparently both the Kilaaks and the Planet X people use saucer shaped spaceships. Huh. Anyway, the Kilaak have taken control of the kaiju through some sort of wave. I don’t think they announced to the world what kind of wave, like Planet X did. But of course, they find a way to free the kaiju again.
Pretty soon, they all gather in one spot for the final showdown. The Kilaak unleash their own monster... and it turns out to be King Ghidorah. Wow, he sure does get his mind controlled by aliens a lot, doesn’t he?
It’s not really a fair fight. In the past, he lost to just Godzilla and Rodan alone, and here, he’s against 6 or 7 other monsters. Poor guy. At least it’s fun to see him get put into the ground. Literally. They literally stomp him into the dirt. It’s one of the best kaiju fights ever. The wirework is amazing. There are so many wires going around, all really close together, I’m wondering how many times they had to retake those shots from getting tangled. Regardless, it is a masterpiece of suit acting.
The only real downside to all this is the fact that the movie focuses WAAAAAY too much on the humans. This film focuses on the humans so much, I would even say it’s worse than Michael Bay’s Transformers. Thought that one had too much human screentime? Here’s Destroy All Monsters.
Do I even need to say anything about the people themselves? I mean, it would be okay if they were enjoyable characters, like in Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster, or Godzilla vs Monster Zero, but they’re so freaking boring. When the people were screwing around, I lost interest, and read my Godzilla comicbook until the monsters came back on screen. That’s
a new low. I was at least entertained by how bad or stupid they were in the previous films. Not here. Speaking of which, I am reviewing the IDW Godzilla comicbooks sometime later on the Countdown.
When the action scenes do happen, it’s really cool. The miniature sets are the best they’ve been in a while. Highly detailed and good to blow up. The toy tanks and helicopters, the spaceships, they’re all well designed. Some shots are really impressive. One of the coolest parts is Mothra’s arrival to Tokyo. She busts through the subway station like a boss! It’s so awesome. The action scenes are worth the wait. And the soundtrack is great, too.
Disappointing with lack monster screentime, but enjoyable when they arrive. Destroy All Monsters is a movie where I would suggest you skip to the action scenes, but the payoff isn’t as great then. The only place I’ve been able to find it is on Amazon, but it’s not cheap. I waited until it dropped from about $77.00 to about $35.00. And the DVD itself is an oddity. It’s an older DVD, works just fine, but the weird part is that there’s no menu at all. Just pop it in, and the movie starts. No scene selection, no language option, no nothing. It’s the only version of it I could find, so if you’re wanting to see it, go ahead.
FINAL RATING: 30 / 50
STORY: 2 / 5. Focused too much on the humans.
ACTING: 3 / 5. It would have been lower, but then I took the suit actors into consideration.
CHARACTERS: 1 / 5. I considered the kaiju to count as characters.
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 4 / 5
ACTION: 5 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 3 / 5
TONE: 2 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 3 / 5. Hindered by the humans, but the action makes up for it.REWATCH VALUE: 3 / 5. If I were to rewatch it, I’d skip to the action scenes.
OWNING VALUE: 4 / 5. Despite the boring humans, I would suggest owning it. Every Godzilla fan needs to see this at least once.
OWNING VALUE: 4 / 5. Despite the boring humans, I would suggest owning it. Every Godzilla fan needs to see this at least once.
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