Director: Ishiro Honda
Year: 1968
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
By 1968, the Japanese film industry had entered a decline from its halcyon days. Theater attendance was dropping because of the influence of television. TV especially injured special effects (tokusatsu) movies and their most profitable subgenre, the giant monster (daikaiju) movie. Toho decided it was the right time to end the Godzilla series (although they would go back on their decision many times since) and gave a great budget to the production of Destroy All Monsters.
In this film, female aliens take control of Earth's monsters and begin using them to destroy the human race.
For one last time, the four “Godzilla-fathers” who brought the monster to screen in 1954 worked together: director Ishiro Honda, visual effects supervisor Eiji Tsubaraya, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, and composer Akira Ifukube. It isn't a serious picture like the original Godzilla (1954) but rather a monster spectacle that features over a dozen kaiju battling it out on the silver screen.
We showed up to see the rubber monsters beating the hell out of each other and the film delivers in that regard. Ohhh, the destruction! No expense was squandered in creating the fantastic miniature buildings that would get destroyed by the big Z. The film structures their action scenes toward two epic set-pieces: First, the mid-movie mass-destruction of Tokyo, with Godzilla, Rodan, Manda, and Mothra. Second, a climatic clash between the ten monsters under human control against the alien’s champion, King Ghidorah
Even though Destroy All Monsters doesn't offer that much drama, it's a nice kaiju picture that gives us exactly what we want. Action-packed, the 88 minute run-time will feel like a breeze as you're cheering on your favourite monster.
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