Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Director: Ishiro Honda

Starring: Akira Kubo, Yukiko Kobayashi

Run Time: 88 mins

Certificate: PG

Plot Outline: Godzilla and the other giant monsters of Earth are being held on Monster Island. Here they can live in peace without being able to leave the confines of the island thanks to a multitude of technological devices stopping them. But then suddenly the monsters start appearing all over the world and wreaking havoc on major cities. Aliens from another planet have come to Earth and want to use these monsters to destroy it!

The Review: Like Universal did when they ran out of ideas for their famous monsters, Toho turned to pitting their giant monsters against each other when they had nothing else for them to do. But after a few lacklustre battles, the series was on the decline and Godzilla was losing his touch. Destroy All Monsters is the tenth entry into the series and was meant as a swansong back in 1968. But it actually made the big monster more popular than ever before as it packs in as much as possible to try and give the big guy a decent farewell. Not bad considering he starred in another eighteen films after this one! But this is the stuff that kaiju fans dream of. Destroy All Monsters just rules! It was the film that got me hooked on Godzilla films and what a hell of a way to start. It does exactly what you want from a kaiju film and that is deliver monsters, monsters and more monsters. Godzilla, Rodan, Anguirus, Mothra, Ghidorah, Spiga, Minya, Manda, Gorosaurus, Varan (briefly) and Baragon all pop-up here at some point. And most of them get some worthy action.

There are some great army versus monster fights with the toy tanks driving around trying to stop them in vain.

There is the ultimate monster rumble at the end of the film. Here Godzilla and the others must do battle with Ghidorah, the 3 headed monster. The fight is one of Toho's best yet most simple and effective. There's little in the way of fancy special effects and laser beam weapons which dog the newer films. The monsters just get down and dirty and punch, kick and bite each other not to mention do flying drop kicks and flying tackles. I always found it grossly unfair to see Ghidorah take on seven other monsters at one time, especially when he was defeated by only three of them in Ghidrah, the 3 Headed Monster. The fight is a little one-sided but it's still fun.

This is what people expect from their monster films and because this film provides it, it's one of the most popular. There is also a complete thrashing of Tokyo by four of the monsters - and believe me this time Tokyo does get pummelled.

Akira Ifukube also produces his best musical score yet which is really rousing and accompanies the action like twins.

As with the bulk of these Godzilla films, aliens looking to conquer the Earth are the MacGuffin to get the monsters smashing cities up. I think this is one of the better attempts to get the aliens on board though. These films always lived or died by their human plot and when they sucked, the film did. Here the cast seem to be having a lot of fun with goofy yellow spacesuit-wearing aliens (who all look more Japanese than their human counterparts!), laser weapons and numerous spaceships and flying saucers. The dubbing is arguably one of the series' best and kaiju regular Akiro Kubo has never been better in the leading role.

Final Verdict: Destroy All Monsters is arguably the pinnacle of Godzilla films. It's everything we've now come to expect from our giant monster friend and more.

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