| Destroy All Monsters! Released: 1968 MPAA Rating: G Genre: Super Monster Nuts and Bolts: Like every other alien race that has ever hopped inside of a flying saucer, the Kilaaks try to take over the Earth. But they’re not using ray beams and teleporters to accomplish their evil ends. Instead, they wage war against the world’s greatest nations through the use of Earth’s most powerful super monsters! Summary: The year is 1999. An organization known as the United Nations Scientific Committee has created two large scientific centers. The first of which is located on Earth’s moon. The second is buried deep under the ground of Ogasawara Island; also known as MONSTER LAND! No, Monster Land is not some kind of Universal Studios theme park, but rather it is a geological island preserve housing the world’s most powerful mega monsters. The UNSC manages to contain them by erecting barriers designed for each monster in general. For the most part, a large invisible electro-magnetic field cuts off the island from the surrounding oceans. Monsters living on the island include: Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Minya, Baragon, Manda, Angilus, Varan, Gorosaurus and Spigas. But at the island’s core is the marine research center of the UNSC. Scientist Kyoko Yamabe tries to call her brother who is on board the lunar shuttle Moonlight SY-3. They speak briefly and their communications get disrupted. Katsuo Yamabe decides to pilot the SY-3 back to Earth to see what the distress is about. En route he sees a strange alien craft flying about near the planet. Back in Monster Land, the lab technicians are taken aback as strange yellow gas floods the silo. The gas also succeeds in covering the entire island including the monsters. Monster Island is completely cut off from the rest of the world. The monsters themselves escape from the island and each one heads towards a major world power. Godzilla is seen leveling New York, while Baragon ravages Paris’ Arc de’Triumphe. Rodan destroys Red Square in Moscow while Mothra savages a bullet train in Peking China. Manda is seen slithering through the streets of London. The SY-3 finally touches back down on Ogasawara Island (I can’t bring myself to call it Monster Land again). As they enter the underground labs they find Doctor Otani and Kyoko behaving very strangely. Everything becomes clear when it is revealed that the scientists are all under the thrall of an alien woman from a species known as the Kilaak. The Kilaak have taken control of the monsters and are using them to attack the world powers. They plan on making Earth their home, but first they must raze its cities in order to build again from the ground up. The astronauts get into a firefight with the hypnotized slaves and barely manage to escape from the compound. Later that day, Katsuo visits the house of Doctor Otani to get some answers. The doctor is in a state of hypnosis and rather than subject himself to Katsuo’s questions, he leaps out the window of his penthouse to his death. Katsuo races down to the beach only to be met by more of the Kilaak servants. The police arrive and another firefight ensues. Katsuo manages to escape. A special meeting of the UNSC is called to order and from there we learn that the Kilaak are enslaving Earth citizens by way of micro implants inserted into their skin. We also discover that the Kilaak have been disguising their transmitter devices in the forms of rocks, meteors, coconuts and other resources that can easily blend into a natural habitat. As the meeting closes, the monsters continue their rampage against the major cities. UNSC advisor Doctor Yoshido wonders why Japan has not been attacked yet. At this point, Godzilla is fucking up the Love Boat over by New York Harbor. Manda derails an El train in London. Before long they begin to realize that it’s just simply not a true monster-mash unless they go and fuck up Tokyo. Rodan appears in the skies over the city and begins destroying buildings with his supersonic shock waves. Mothra treads his way along and even though he’s little more than a slimy little caterpillar, he succeeds in causing quite amount of property damage. (I wonder if these guys have ‘Act of Godzilla’ insurance?) While Tokyo is being shown the direct route back to the Stone Age, the Kilaaks build an underground base of operations near Mount Fuji on Izu Island. Through Kyoko, they deliver an ultimatum to the UNSC stating that unless they surrender control of Earth to the Kilaak, then they will command the monsters to continue to destroy civilization. Katsuo can’t stand seeing his sister being dominated by the Kilaaks any longer so he wrestles her to the ground ripping her micro-transmitters out (They were contained in her earrings). The army tries to invade Izu Island but to no avail. It is too well guarded by the monsters. Doctor Yoshido of the UNSC tries to rebuild the Ogasawara research center while the SY-3 blasts off to the moon to find the main Kilaak transmitter unit. The spaceship lands on the western shore of the lunar Alpine valley. Descending into a cave, they locate the central transmitter and destroy it. Not only does this relinquish the Kilaak’s control over their Earth slaves, but it also relinquishes their control over the monsters. Well…most of the monsters anyway. As the monsters gather together on Izu Island, the Kilaak’s summon their last resort. King Ghidrah! Ghidrah lands on the island and the battle is on. A Japanese press official MC’s the battle as if he were Michael Buffer at a WCW pay per-view. All at once, the monsters gang pile on top of Ghidrah. Mothra and Spigas pretty much come all over him while Godzilla attacks him from behind. Rodan doesn’t do fuck all but kick up some dirt. Ghidrah decides that he wants to take out Angilus first. He grabs him in his talons and lifts him way up into the air. He drops him back down to the Earth and then pile drives him. Angilus limps away with his tail tucked between his legs. Then Godzilla and Gorosaurus tag-team Ghidrah. Godzilla punches Ghidrah in the balls while Gorosaurus dropkicks him from behind. They finally get Ghidrah onto the ground and Godzilla stomps the shit out of his left most head. Angilus, still sore from landing on his back returns to munch down on Ghidrah’s right head. And then there’s little Minya, who burps up one of his little fucking smoke rings, which (believe it or not) manages to strangle the shit out of Ghidrah’s middle head. Spigas and Mothra give Ghidrah another facial and bind him up tight with their web strands. After knocking Ghidrah’s dick in the dirt, Godzilla hunts down the Kilaak underground base. He destroys the whole fucking shebang forcing the alien chicks to flee. They board a ship called the Fire Dragon and try to exit Earth’s orbit. But Captain Katsuo is ready for them in his trusty SY-3. He blasts them out of the sky with the ship’s lasers. Acting/Dialogue: Like all Godzilla movies, the acting is impressively shitty. What I mean is, these guys must practice for HOURS to make sure that their performances are as lackluster as possible. These are NOT your standard amateur coffeehouse thespians nosireebob. Only consummate professionals can execute performances as forced and as hollow as these. The dialogue in this film (believe it or not) is actually WORSE than what we have come to expect from other Kaiju movies. These characters belch out lines that are just so insultingly dumb I cannot conceive why real people would ever say such things. Gore: This is a kid’s flick so there’s nothing really gory here. The most we get to see is part of an autopsy wherein a scientist removes the cybernetic implant from behind one of the corpse’s ears. And Ghidrah gets a little blood on him. That's pretty much it. Guilty Pleasures: I have to admit that I found myself appalled at the abundance of nudity showcased in what is primarily a movie aimed at a young viewer’s demographic. EVERY single monster in this movie is completely naked! Even the infant Minya doesn’t sport so much as a ball cap! For God’s sakes man put some CLOTHES on these critters! There are children watching this flick! Oh the humanity. The Good: I won’t mince words. This flick sucks. But it does have one overwhelming redeeming quality that makes it worth viewing. There are a SHITLOAD of bloody fucking monsters in this film! We of course get the ever-recognizable fan favorites: Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra. We also have a few of the lesser-known monsters: Angilus, Minya and Ghidrah. And then we have the ones that are so bloody obscure that I have never even heard of them before. There’s Spigas, who is a giant spider. Pretty cool looking monster that I believe has only made one appearance prior. There’s also Varan. I don’t know what the fuck he is. Then there’s Gorasaurus, who’s pretty much just a flabby Tyrannosaur. We also have Baragon, another dinosaur. There’s even a snake like thing with legs called Manda. For such an obscure critter, he gets a pretty decent amount of screen time. (Although Gorosaurus seems to hug the most screen time out of all the obscure monsters) The only ones who don’t pop up in this film are those annoying as fuck little Mothra faeries from Infant Island. (And that is HARDLY to the detriment of the film) The Bad: All right, let me start off by saying that the whole Alien invasion plot line is played to death. This has been done at least three other times in Godzilla films and will be done at least another three times before the series reaches its end. The Kilaak aliens are amusing only in the fact that they look EXACTLY like Japanese Earth citizens. Kinda weird. But the alien bitch wears some of the corniest looking disco duds I have ever seen. It’s basically your typical 1960s silver skullcap and sparkling uniform. To be honest, the other costumes used in this film are pretty atrocious too. The astronauts wear these bright canary yellow suits and helmets. How they can conduct any sort of business without laughing out loud at one another is beyond me. Katsuo tries to play the stern rugged type, but ultimately fails because the viewer can’t get past the gay-ass space suit he’s wearing. Even Arnold Shwarzenegger would fail to be intimidating if dressed in such a get-up. This movie can be very difficult to watch. Very little time is devoted to the monsters. We get a little bit of a teaser in the beginning, but that goes by VERY quickly. We see about three minutes worth of Godzilla in the middle of the flick. We don’t really get to see some heavy ass kicking until the last fifteen minutes. All of the material in the middle is very long winded and the sorry ass dialogue makes it unbearably long. The biggest fuck up in this movie comes down to a question of continuity. The Kilaak gases Monster Land and not even five minutes later, the monsters are seen attacking the major cities. Are we to believe that the most powerful nations in the world don’t maintain the technology to spot a big fucking dinosaur sauntering up to your coastline. Take for example Rodan. Rodan trashes Moscow. Now I’m no geography expert, but I know enough to state with a degree of confidence that Moscow is nestled firmly in the middle of Russia. Are they saying that NOBODY saw this giant fucking chicken flying over the skies of Russia? And just how exactly DID these monsters GET to the varying cities. Sure Godzilla can just swim over and Rodan can fly, but what about the others? I find it hard to believe that Mothra could wriggle his fat ass all the way to Peking in less time than it takes to eject this piece of shit from the VCR. And what about the other dinosaur critters? How in the hell did they get off the island? These guys are reptiles not amphibians, they can’t breathe underwater. So how in the name of Godzooki did they acquire the ability to cross trans-Atlantic channels? There’s a really humorously dumb scene that takes place when we first meet the Kilaak woman. One of the astronauts goes to attack her and she rebuffs him with some sort of energy shield. The sound effect used for the shot is very clearly a telephone ringing. I wonder if AT&T got royalties for their contribution to this cinematic classic. I should really stop bitching since I am obviously putting WAY too much thought into a movie, which was designed for kids. So if you’re a Godzilla fan, go check out Destroy All Monsters. Just remember to check your brain at the door and you’ll do fine. It’s a fun flick with heaps of monsters causing massive amounts of destruction. Great Lines: “Captain! Let’s not run away! Let’s FIGHT them!” --Overly excited crewman from the Moonlight SY-3 “Open all rockets. Open them ALL the way!” --Just another example of some of the corny-ass dialogue in this flick. “Why that…” --About seven different guys say this throughout the course of the film. A nice way to harken back to the pre-MPAA days when you couldn’t simply just say, “Awww fuck!” Overall Rating: 4 out of 10 severed heads. (And that’s ONLY if you’re a fan of b-grade cheese films. If not, then its only worthy of a 3.) |
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