Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Coventry Unless you've seen it with your very own two eyes, you simply cannot imagine how much fun there's to be had with "Destroy All Monsters". It's a pure and incredibly party-mix of deranged plotting, hilarious dialogs & bad dubbing, grotesque monster action and unimaginably cheesy sound and light effects. I understand this was some kind of celebration movie for the famous Toho Company, as it was their 20th film featuring monsters. It was also the 14th film of director Ishirô Honda, since his original and still almighty "Godzilla" in 1954, in which he systematically destroys Tokyo or sometimes even the whole of Japan on film! For these special occasions – and merely also for your viewing pleasure – Honda and the good people at Toho Company combined their talents to bring us the ultimate monster mash! And what a treat it is. "Destroy All Monsters" naturally features Godzilla, but also his slightly moronic son, the awesome Mothra and Spiga and also Rodan, Angilas, Manda and the utterly cool three-headed extraterrestrial monster Ghidrah! But still there's more. How about a malignant race of evil female aliens, called the Kilaahks, that turn respectable earthly scientists into obedient disciples through nerve gas but turn into petrified worms as soon as they get exposed to cold weather? "Destroy All Monsters" has it all … and more! The year is 1999. Humans fly to the moon on a daily basis (ha!) and all the once dangerous monsters have been safely gathered on a place called Monsterland, where they're being monitored by scientists. But then Kilaahks come with the intention of taking over our planet. They hypnotize the scientists and turn the monsters into remote controlled instruments of devastation that they subsequently let loose all across the world! Godzilla and C° demolish New York, Paris, London and Moscow before they all return together to ravage Tokyo. But a handful of courageous astronauts fight back. When the monsters are back under control eventually, the Kilaahks have to bring in their own space monsters like Ghidrah and a dragon of fire. "Destroy All Monsters" is terrific entertainment, chock-full of (unintentional) laughs and irresistibly delightful special effects and tacky set pieces. I had the pleasure of seeing this cute flick on a big cinema screen, during a "Monster Movie Double Feature" special, and the entire theater had a great time. Everything about this film is so charming and kitschy, like aliens' costumes, the rocket ships' designs and – of course – the monsters devastating rampages. The English dubbed version provides even more hysterical situations, as the acting performances come across as very hammy. Keep an eye on the elderly non-Asian scientist especially. Whenever he opens his mouth to talk, it sounds like he's about to suffer from a stroke and die on the spot!

sveknu This monster ensemble movie is one of the best Godzilla movies of all time, in my opinion. The more monsters, the better, and this movies has A LOT of them. Some I hadn't even heard of before, which made me seek out some other unknown movies to watch. I also liked the fact that they had scenes from different parts of the world. Anyway, it's great with lots of monsters, but the special effects have to be good to make the scenes decent. For being made in 1968, I think they were acceptable (hadn't been OK today, though). The last scene was good fun, and also had some surprises. Kaiju fans and Godzilla fans won't be disappointed here. My verdict is 6 out of 10.

MARIO GAUCI Even if Leonard Maltin rates this higher than KING KONG ESCAPES (1967) – giving it ** against the latter's BOMB – I seemed to enjoy that one more; mind you, both are essentially dreadful…but, at least, the KONG film had a good deal of campiness going for it – whereas this is merely dull (in spite of megalomaniac aliens and a plethora of monsters)! In a way, the film is a rehash of Honda's own MONSTER ZERO (1965), which I watched some time ago – where you also had an interplanetary attempt at world domination that saw the involvement of a clutch of Toho Studios monsters. Here, however, we get a greater variety of the latter: dinosaurs Anguirus, Baragon, Gorosaurus, Godzilla (along with its annoying baby offspring Minilla) and the flying Rodan, the spider Kumonga, the snake-like Manda and the worm Mothra. Though all these are eventually brainwashed by the aliens to do their evil bidding, destroying several of the world's leading cities in the process, the latter provide their own monster – King Ghidorah – for the grand finale (during which it takes on all comers but, obviously, emerges the loser). That said, only Godzilla Snr. and Rodan receive any decent exposure throughout the film! While it is accompanied by a typically rousing score, the action often comes across as confusing rather than exciting (not to mention unintentionally hilarious during the climactic monster mash). As for the plot, it's all quite dreary – and lazy: all the Earth monsters have conveniently been assembled on an island to be studied (yeah, right – just try to get a blood sample from Godzilla, or Rodan, for that matter)...but, then, the aliens (naturally possessing superior intelligence and frightening assurance – they must have missed MONSTER ZERO, for they're deluded into thinking that the monster ensemble can't hold a candle to King Ghidorah!) manage to fit all of them with a conditioning device behind the ears!! Finally perhaps its most amusing elements to me were the fact that the island personnel (channeling the monsters' individual movements on a monitor) are able to judiciously cross-cut, for suspense purposes, between attacker and prey (a moving train) during a demonstration; the film-makers could have fitted the aliens with make-up or, at least, a mask so as to hide their all-too-obvious Asian countenance (there's no suggestion in the script that that they may have adopted such a disguise in order to go undetected among the Earthlings); also, for a kiddie film, a lot of the human characters are heard cursing the aliens (sure, it's in Japanese, but the implication is unmistakable).

winner55 destroy all monsters is the one old school Godzilla film that you must see.first, of course, It effectively sums up the series to that point, by explaining the inter-connectedness of all the essential toho monsters. it also revealed the deep relationship between the Godzilla films and the toho sci-fi films of the same period - e.g. the mysterians.however, all this 'interconnecting' did the one thing that really drew the fans of these films all-together, in a way the producers may not have intended - after a decade of debate among film fans, it was no longer possible to maintain that these films were not essentially silly and badly made. which, far from alienating the grounding audience for the Godzilla films, actually brought them all togetrher and gave them an identity - if we could agree on nothing else, we could at least agree that the Godzilla films were absolute trash, and yet funny as hell.if you still think you have a brain on your shoulders, wait till you see Godzilla and his friends decide - and, yes, they are the ones to make the decision - that earth must be saved from ghidirah, the space monster. wait until you see, for yourself, the marvelous professional wrestling moves these rubber lizards pull on ghidirah - and in tag-team, no less. meanwhile, the earthling heroes debate whether the enemy planet is too hot to land on; but even so, they do land on it, and despite the inevitable destruction of their space-ship - which miraculously never happens - they reduce the aliens to little rock-lizards that are fairly harmless, if kept in the cooler...oh, bliss - but there is really too much wonder to relate here - you simply must accept that this movie is good for you - and if it isn't, it's fun anyway, huh - of course, the real star of this film is the big green guy - to hell with special effects - 'oh no - there goes Tokyo - go go Godzilla'