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"Are we watching the Thunderbirds?"

Written By: Patrick Terry

What went wrong here? Director Meltdown? Cutting-room craziness? Most of the screentime is an interior view of the rocket cabin, with a head-on view of six expressionless astronauts. They're quite like wooden, helmeted puppets! Even with a change of setting the acting is bad, except for the gloating alien queen. So sad. Other Toho films from the 60's have great, albiet campy, acting by the human cast... Another thing I dislike is the jumpy, almost stroboscopic telling of the tale. It is as if the film was made correctly, but then dozens of scenes were edited out, leaving a chopped-up salad of images: mostly those six, stupid puppets burned into my retina. Egad! Concepts bother me also: the monsters have been confined to Monster Island, or Monsterland. Absurd. Monsters are not beasts to be herded about by men. This is obviously impossible, why couldn't confining techniques work in the previous films? Simple. It takes monsters to beat monsters. Earth's brightest scientific or military methods always fail in controlling Mothra, Rodan, or Godzilla... Saving this film from dismal failure are delightful cameos: Manda sloooowly destroying a bridge, Rodan snagging and eating Flipper (Cool!); Mothra charging headlong into a passenger train (naughty, naughty baby Mothra!)... Best of all we finally see Ghidorah getting the snot beaten out of him, while Mothra, in a celebratory mood, shoots confetti. I could watch this shining ten minutes over and over again! On to technical aspects of this disc. It is letterbox (good), but in ENGLISH ONLY and HAS NO SUBTITLES OPTION (verrrrry bad). My opinion? Twelve minutes of good film pushes this from one to two stars.

"Great movie marred by phony audio track"

Written By: Victor Costa

I love this movie. That is, I love this movie with the original 1960s English dub track. Sadly, for legal reasons, the makers of this DVD did not use that audio and substituted a really crappy one. It ttally ruins the film. I only can hope that one day the legal issues are resolved and they can put out this movie with the good audio. PLEASE!!

"The Monsters Are In Revolt..."

Written By: Mark Rainey

Destroy All Monsters is probably my second favorite Godzilla movie after the original (though it's certainly neck-and-neck with 1964's Mothra vs. Godzilla). It's the last entry in the Showa era Godzilla films made in the inimitable style of Ishiro Honda's most classic daikaiju outings, and is, in fact, Honda's penultimate directorial job of the Godzilla series. The film is literally a gathering of most of Toho's monsters, and they are given plenty of quality screen time. Similarly, the human cast includes many familiar, noteworthy faces, with Akira Kubo, Yoshio Tsuchiya, and Jun Tazaki playing prominent, memorable roles. Akira Ifukube's musical score remains one of his all-time best, reprising several well-known themes, from his traditional Godzilla theme to motifs used for Rodan and King Ghidorah, as well as a distinctive military march, all beautifully arranged and orchestrated.

Destroy All Monsters utilizes the now timeworn premise of space aliens--specifically, the Kilaaks, who come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter--saying politely to Earth's leaders, "Please hand over your planet, or these monsters will bust your ass." The storyline is similar to Monster Zero, made a couple of years previously, but in most respects, Destroy All Monsters goes about it on a grander scale, with daikaiju showing up all over the world to wreak havoc. However, in Monster Zero, the Xians have some motivation for conquering the earth: the acquisition of natural resources (water, in this case), which is scarce on their world. (In fact, it's rather ironic that the villains in that movie in some ways reflect Japan's expansionist philosophy prior to World War II.) In Destroy All Monsters, there's no insinuation of motive; only that, for the Kilaaks, a little conquest makes for an enjoyable day's work.

The Kilaaks themselves are interesting enough; in their terrestrial form, they appear as beautiful, silver-clad women--or at least holographic projections of beautiful, silver-clad women. In their natural state, they are living minerals, which resemble snails made of glittery stone, and they can only survive in an environment of extreme heat--which begs the question, how do enslaved humans share their living space without being burned to death? Perhaps the bodies of the human slaves we view are actually Kilaaks who have merely taken their forms, but this little point is never addressed in the script. Of course, in a movie such as this, one doesn't expect scientific plausibility, although it's certainly nice when events adhere to at least a modicum of internal logic.

Ah well, in Destroy All Monsters, it's the monsters themselves we paid to see, and in this regard, the movie doesn't disappoint. This is the movie that introduces us to Monster Island, a.k.a. Monsterland on Ogasawara Island, where most of Toho's daikaiju have been collected and confined, for security purposes as well as for scientific investigation. (We'll have to take it on faith that, in actuality, the monsters have been there for a while because, though the movie is set in 1999, films that were made after Destroy All Monsters but ostensibly occur at an earlier date, such as Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. Megalon, also feature Monster Island.) Unlike the Xians in Monster Zero, who showed some restraint and didn't unleash the monsters until we ungrateful Earthlings refused their kind offer of enslavement, the Kilaaks start off on the right foot and send the monsters to the four corners of the earth to do some whooping on miniature cities. Godzilla invades New York! Manda slithers through London! Rodan swats down Moscow! Baragon burrows under Paris!

But wait...that's not actually Baragon. Why...it's Gorosaurus, from King Kong Escapes. This little gaffe is in the original Japanese version as well as the English, and this is because, originally, Baragon was scheduled to destroy Paris, and the dialogue stating this had already been recorded. However, when the scene was filmed, Toho found the Baragon suit beyond repair--largely from multiple uses (in disguise, of course) in the Ultraman TV series. So Gorosaurus was hastily substituted, but that's even Baragon's roar you hear when the Arc de Triomphe crumbles. In general, the monster suits are very good, although King Ghidorah appears a bit more scraggly than he did in Monster Zero. The Godzilla suit is well-proportioned and has a ferocious demeanor--a monstrous improvement over his distinctly frog-like appearance in his previous film, Son of Godzilla.

Apart from the DVD being the barest of bare bones releases, the most unfortunate aspect of the ADV release is that the dubbing is the miserable International version recorded in Hong Kong, rather than the far superior job recorded by Titra Sound Studios for the 1969 American International Pictures release. On the good side, the print is not bad, it's in wide-screen (though not anamorphic), and it's the same as the full-length Japanese version, which differs slightly from the American release (although in some respects, the AIP release is superior to the original; most notably, moving the opening march to the end, which improves the pacing a bit).

All in all, this ADV release is satisfactory, but only just. How wonderful it would be, at long last, to see a wide-screen release of Destroy All Monsters that features the AIP cut, if for nothing more than its superior dub.

"Solid Gold Creature Feature"

Written By: Graboidz

So apparently there are some elements on this disk that folks are irritated over, the altered dubbing and soundtrack changes seem to be the largest bone of contention, with lack of chapters and no special features a close second. As a longtime fan of the Godzilla series, I didn't notice either and wouldn't have noticed except for the other reviews posted here. I don't particularly care about the lack of chapters or extras on the DVD either.

What I do care about, and what most viewers should care about is this:
1. Godzilla
2. Rodan
3. Mothra
4. King Ghidorah
5. Gorosaurus
6. Anguirus
7. Varan
8. Baragon
9. Minilla
10. Kumonga
11. Manda
They are all here! Sure some barely make a cameo, but for the most part Toho emptied out its creature vault and packed this film to the hilt with our favorite fighting critters.

The basic story, which had been used already by Toho, and which would be used again later in the series, is that a pesky group of aliens want to use Earth's monsters as weapons against humanity in order to take over our world. Using mind control on the giant monsters, tons of cities around the globe get flattened in imaginitive and fun ways. Can mankind regain limited control of our monsters, or will the aliens destroy the Earth?

If you are a fan of Toho's giant monsters, then you must own this film! It features some of the most memorable monsters in filmdom, has the signature special effects Toho became famous for and is sure to be a crowd pleaser as scene after scene features monsters fighting or smashing things. "Destroy all Monsters" is definately worth adding to your collection.

"Gotta Love It!"

Written By: FJHixonSr

It is a classic Monster flick. I don't know what else to say besides if you like Classics you will love this one!