Les envahisseurs attaquent

All the monsters on "Monster Island" have been taken control of by an alien race through a mystical fart like cloud, and are set off on a rampage across earth. Meanwhile, a team of astronauts must band together to gain back control of the monster squad before it's too late.

As the end of the so called "Golden Era" of the Toho produced films, "Destroy All Monsters" is a suitably cheesy and throughly entertaining finale to this part of the Showa-era. Although I miss the darkness of the original, at this point in the series I was on board with the silliness of the plots. As always, the practical effects here are fantastic for the time period. The rampaging monsters look the best they have ever looked, and every scene that the monsters are on screen is so fun.

I'd be reluctant to say it's the best of the Showa era, but I would say it's one of the most entertaining in terms of pure monster madness. A must watch for Kajiu fans.

Side note: I've never watched a rated G movie that literally shows a guy getting shot in the face, with blood and all, AND a suicide. Damn the 60's were wild.

Love Godzilla, love other monsters, love aliens, love destruction, love this movie.Destroy All Monsters takes us into the future where all monsters are now confined to Monster Island. All goes well until a race of alien metal people kidnap the monsters. Then, they brainwash them and set them to attack the major cities of the world. After so many Godzilla island adventures, it was so good to see the cities having their asses whooped. Great designs and model work left for a series of inventive attacks. By the end it all descends into a chaotic (and very unfair) fight. However, their were some genuine moments of panic. There was a moment between Anguilas and King Ghiddorah which left me almost covering my eyes. The sheer intensity, and likable monsters made it an engaging affair. We're left to deliberate how creatures instinctively know who their enemies are. This is a greatest hits for all fans of the genre.

While "Destroy All Monsters" is no doubt a great Godzilla film, it definitely has its problems and it not the non-stop awesome epic it has acquired as a reputation over the years.

I think the film's rep as the "ultimate Godzilla epic" had to do with a few certain things. As kids, we certainly remember this movie being played on Saturday afternoons of the late late show because it does have a cool title and well, plenty of monsters. Also helping was the fact that after VHS got really popular, while plenty of Godzilla films were released (mostly shoddy released from cheapo companies), DAM was not released, and therefore was highly sought-after on the bootleg market. I remember reading a magazine in the mid-80's where one guy claims he paid $150 for as bootleg copy, imagine that!

How disappointing the DVD release is. While it's nice to have the film on disc, in English and widescreen, it has no title screen, no chapters, no extras, no nothing.

The film itself, well it is really good and a lot of fun. Aliens want to cause trouble for Earth, and get the monsters off Monster Island to destroy all the planet's major cities. Unfortunately, you hardly see any actual destruction of these cities, because it's pretty much just a quick shot or two (like Godzilla destroying the UN building in NYC, and that's that). All the monsters then get together in Tokyo (they seem to travel around the world really quickly) to collectively pounce on that city (well, where else?). Some really good destruction scenes happen here, and it is here where some good scenes were cut from the film, especially the famous "Godzilla vs. Manda" (the snake) scene, which you can see on a Toho "deleted scenes and outtakes" video. It's a quick scene but extremely cool to see and have, having read and heard about the missing fight since I was a little kid.

Really disappointing is the actual final battle between Ghidrah and the monster group. Ghidrah hardly fires his lasers, and doesn't really seem to put up a great fight. But he still is probably the coolest looking monster Toho ever came up with, so he's a fan fave anyway.

Of course the lack of monsters throughout the movie is a downer, because you barely even see some of them. Varan actually comes back for a quick shot at the end of the movie when his rubber puppet just kind of rises from behind a mountain and then shoots up into the sky.

There is a lot of action though, a decent plot, good music, pretty Japanese girls, and a lot of cool camera shots. While DAM isn't quite the legend it is made to be, it probably is the last truly great Godzilla film of the original series.

The basic set-up sure seems delicious; a whole group of Toho's most popular monsters all in one movie. Godzilla, Rodan, Anguillas, Mothra and pretty much all the others (including a few very obscure ones) packed into one movie should by all rights be simply irresistible.

And....mwelll, it is quite good, only not as tremendous as I had expected. Yes, the whole kaiju bunch get together to battle the nasty aliens in the end (who send in Ghidora against them, who's always nice to see in action as the kaiju über-baddie), and this big fight scene is pretty great. Only, it's short, and there's little else in there that really stands out. In fact, for a flick with so many monsters in it, you see shockingly little footage of the kaiju actually tearing up cities good and proper. Plus, some very obscure monsters join the fray, which eventually only clutters things, as we'd rather just see the proper big-name kaiju instead of a shady filler-material monster.

There's some kind of a plot in there, but it's not really something to write home about. Someone's had the clever idea to store all the earth's (or Toho studios') giant monsters on the aptly-named isle of Monster Island. This just begs for disaster, of course. Before long, a mysterious cataclysm causes all the monsters to escape and wreak havoc. And as usual, there's a bunch of unpleasant, and very oddly dressed aliens behind all this. Que lots of scenes with brave human heroes and their funky spaceship trying to put a halt to the aliens' evil plans. In fact, far too many of such scenes. And while there are delightfully silly cheapo sci-fi costumes and tacky spaceships in there, somehow more of the proper kaiju action that this film's concept promised would've been much better.

It's still quite an addition to a kaiju lover's collection, and is good enough to kill time in a nicely silly way, with all those groovy big monsters in there. Worth a go, but could've been much more. (still, hooray for a flick where poor old Anguillas is -not- merely used as a kaiju-sized live punching bag for a change).

Still one of my favorite Godzilla Movies but the new English dubbed version is horrible... someone stated in a previous review that the new version is comical..they got that right...is there an old copy out there with the original dubbed version out there..would love to see that version..throw this new version out the window...lol