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Destroy All Monsters Director: Ishirô Honda Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Letterbox Format: Color Audience Rating: G (General Audience) Running Time: 90 minutes Studio: A.D. Vision Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2000-02-22 Buy from Amazon

From Amazon.com When a malevolent race of Moonwomen try to put the big hurt on Earth, it's up to (take a deep breath) Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Anguilas, Minya, Manda, Baragon, and Spigas to resist their evil mind control and make the world safe for monster (and human) kind! Long unavailable on video, Destroy All Monsters is the crowning achievement of the Japanese monster genre, with wall-to-wall action, cheesily magnificent special effects, and a final nine-to-one battle royale (against the awesome three-headed dragon known to fans as King Ghidorah) that's guaranteed to get even the most passive viewer noisily bopping around the room. A badly dubbed, logic-defying, supremely gonzo blast, presented in a widescreen format that allows the watcher to see every single rubber scale. The original title for this quintessential creature bash translates as Godzilla Electric Battle Masterpiece, which just about says it all. --Andrew Wright

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 110 Average rating: 4.0 "Get the kids! This'll be fun!" As with most 1960's Godzilla movies; kinda hoakie & contrived dialogue, but entertaining none the less. If you can leave reality for about 90 minutes, then this movie, "Destroy All Monsters" is a better rate movie than I give it. The special effects are good for the time, & it actually has a pretty good plot. The Keyloks are beautiful enemies, and most of all of the monsters in the Toho & Honda movies are here. We even get to see Paris invaded...again! The only problem is that the DVD says that it is in 16:9 format, but is made in widescreen, which sucks if you have a 16:9 player. The description on amazon.com doesn't mention that this is a widescreen version either, as they're usually quite thorough in these details. Unfortunately, in this instance, this is not the case. THIS MOVIE IS MADE IN WIDESCREEN FORMAT! Besides that, the color on this video is awesome. Get the kids, pop the popcorn, & get ready for some old time monsterous fun! "An old veirson of Godzilla final wars." This was an alright movie but why did they have it in the year 1999 for.The story is about space women trying to take over the world with there new monster named king Ghidorah(is that right) but the other monsters stand in the way will they win nobody knows. " GOOD MOVIE HORRIBLE DUBBING" this is a good movie it has almost all of the monsters{GODZILLA,RODAN,ANGUIRUS,KING GHIDORAH,MANDA,BARAGON,MANILLA,MOTHRA LARVA VERSION.THIS IS A GOOD MOVIE BUT bad dubbing if it wasn't for that i would have given it 5 stars "Cult classic with questionable merit" Godzilla was certainly enjoying the 1960s, as Destroy All Monsters oh so effortlessly conveys. Released in 1968, this movie was to be one Godzilla's last in its most fruitful decade. The bulk of the Showa series of Godzilla movies were released in the 60s, including King Kong vs. Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Mothra, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, Son of Godzilla, and the abysmal Godzilla's Revenge. Kaiju fans look upon this era with both great satisfaction and immense disgust: While there were some classic Godzilla movies released in this era, such as Godzilla vs. Mothra (Arguably the finest Goji movie ever made), some immense blotches also found their way to the screen (Son of Godzilla, Godzilla's Revenge). Destroy All Monsters falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Laden with bright, misplaced colors, an immensely cheesy story, and laughable visual effects, Destroy All Monsters can be considered both a nostalgic gem and an embarassment. The year is 1999, and of course mankind has extended its reach to space colonies on the moon and the rocketship Moonlight SY-9 flies missions to and fro in an utmost casual fashion. All of Earth's most dangerous monsters have been confined to "Monsterland," a habitat that works under the magic of science. Woo, go science! Things are going well until a species of malevolent space women seize control of the monsters and use them to attack Earth's largest metropolises. Yes, the story is that bad. Can anything better really be expected from a campy 60s trip? In fact, this God-forsaken story is arguably what makes the film fantastic to a degree: It actually has the bravery, the confidence to urinate a story about evil space women onto our screens. And it certainly goes the whole nine-yards with afformentioned urination as actors with an abysmal void of talent get into firefights with what appear to be toy guns, all the while wearing rubbery yellow space suits. Clearly, Destroy All Monsters has no shame, and it really is hard to be mad at any movie that's willing to be so outwardly ridiculous. With a title like Destroy All Monsters, one is understandably going to expect an immense amount of monster action. Unfortunately (and ironically), the film gets a little too caught up in the writhingly bad human drama, and while the monsters get rollin' almost right away, the action sequences are limited. While the movies waves news reports in front of our faces of the monsters attacking Earth's most treasured cities, such as New York City, Moscow, and Paris, there is a gargantuanly disappointing lack of footage. It is by no stretch an exaggeration to say that there is less than four minutes in total of the monsters attacking these capital cities in the movie. Considering this is the movie's prime selling point, this is simply unacceptable. Destroy All Monsters tries to make up for it by offering a long sequence of the monsters trampling Tokyo, but we could watch any other kaiju eiga for that, and they would probably be better-crafted scenes to boot. Yet Destroy All Monsters makes it almost worth it with its final fight sequence, in which all of Earth's monsters square off against the powerful King Ghidorah. It's a very effective fight all of the way through, starting with an impressive and menacing entrance by King Ghidorah. One of Destroy All Monsters' high points is that it creates a solid build-up of hate towards the its antagonists, which makes this fight all the more satisfying. Their confidence in their precious King Ghidorah is absolutely crushed as we witness Earth's finest pummel it in what can best be described as a big, sweaty, kaiju gang-rape. Even Minya, Godzilla's son, gets in on the action. This lone sequence alone is the movie's crowning achievment, and even if it does seem randomly placed ("Oh snap, you found our base! Well, uh, we have KING GHIDORAH! SO THERE!") the movie would be a colossal failure without it. In the end, Destroy All Monsters is a bit rough around the edges, but if you know what you're getting yourself into it can make for an enjoyable experience. If anything, it should go down in cinema history as a shining example of the 60s. Unlike most kaiju eiga, Destroy All Monsters doesn't even make the weakest of efforts to inject any sort of deeper meaning or symbolism to its story, but that's alright: Destroy All Monsters knows what it is. See it for the entertaining fight with King Ghidorah or as a memorial to the 60s, but stay far, far away if you're expecting anything more. "You Can Almost Smell The Rubber Suits!" (NOTE: this review is NOT for the "50th Anniversary Edition", rather the cheaper of the two available on Amazon) Simplified Plot: The year is 1999, and a group of space aliens (women wrapped in aluminum-foil, basically) intend to dominate the Earth. They have gained control over the gigantic monsters of MonsterLand (an isolated island used to observe them safely) and have set them loose upon our cities to wreak havoc. The humans race is in definite danger, but what can we do? Can Godzilla and the others ever brake away from this spell? Will we survive this massive attack governed by these other-worldly enemies? It seems like hope is in sight when we temporarily break the diabolical spell over the towering creatures, but then the aliens unleash their secret weapon: King Ghidorah! It's now an all-out battle between the monsters! Who will win? The humans? The aliens? The monsters!? For those curious, here are the included monsters (by their Toho names, anyway): Godzilla: He needs no introduction. Mothra: Here, the giant moth is without wings (by the look, I assume she is in her caterpillar stage, or whatever that thing's life cycle goes through). Rodan: A huge bird-like creature, reminiscent of the pre-historic era. Gorosaurus: Large, fierce creature, fairly close to a T-Rex. Anguirus: Basically, an over-sized armadillo. Kumonga: Giant spider. Manda: Eastern-style dragon-like creature. Minilla: Godzilla's son. Looks like something from "Honey, I Blew Up The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie (and, no, that's not a real movie). King Ghidorah: In short, a big three-headed dragon. Also, I thought I spotted (on either MonsterLand or someplace else) Baragon and possibly Varan. Hmm. Maybe all of that rubber messed with my senses. Oh well. Now for my personal opinion... Some people have complained that the storyline focuses way too much on the human/alien struggle rather than the monsters. I completely agree. Despite a few screen shots of the mayhem unfolding in the cities, there is hardly any monster action until the final battle scene -- where they all end up side by side to defeat Ghidorah. Indeed this scene is spectacular, but can one scene make a movie worth purchasing? After all, most of the film is a bore-fest where the humans are trying to figure out what the aliens are doing (and eventually, how they can stop them). Well, the reason to buy this is simple -- probably the same reason you're reading these reviews. As long as you're a fan of the cheesy rubber-suited creatures of old cinema, Destroy All Monsters is a way to enjoy the child-like fun of seeing your favorite Japanese monsters all in one movie, and essentially all in one battle. As long as you don't mind the stinky storyline and the lack of constant action, this should make a great addition to your DVD collection if only for the last big fight. As for this particular DVD edition, the complaints regularly appearing on this review page are every bit true. Not only is there an absense of a menu page, but the chapter-skip button cannot be used -- only the fast-forward button. So, while it's good advice that after you've seen it once already you should just skip to the last scene the next time you watch it, there's no way to do so unless you're willing to fast-forward through the entire film. They could've at least included chapter-skipping -- even if there wasn't an actual scene selection page. There is hope for those who have a "Search Mode" (or a feature like it) on their DVD remote control that enables them to jump to a specific spot in the film by typing in the exact time desired (for those who have this, the fight is around an hour and eleven mintues, so I just punch in "1:11:11"), but for others this could be a big disappointment. (Also, for those who've read about the bonus soundtrack CD, it's not included with this edition.) In conclusion, Destroy All Monsters is a great movie for any lover of giant monsters flicks -- especially lovers of Godzilla and his legendary foes. However, the DVD makes you think twice about owning it. Even after knowing the negative aspects from other reviewers, I ordered this and can't say I'm disappointed. Just be warned, if you don't like crappy DVD's, you might want to consider buying the "50th Anniversary Edition", even though it's a bit more expensive. It's probably worth it.