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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 |
 "Decent, but highly overrated."Summary: It's 1999, and Godzilla, along with the rest of Earth's mightiest monsters, must fight to stop the world from extra terrestrial take over. Often held as being the "Godzilla Masterpiece", this movie falls short of being an epic. True the scenes with the monsters are interesting as always, but they are few and far between with a lot of rather boring human action spread throughout. Even the giant monster battle at the end is more like a brief skirmish. Overall, not the worst in the series but certainly not the best, either. Next is "Godzilla's Revenge".  "Monsters, Destruction, Aliens, what's not to like?"This my favorite Godzilla movie of the first, or Showa (the period in Japan in which Hirohito was emperor), series. It's got all the best giant monsters: Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan, Manda (from Atragon, one of my favs), Baragon (from Frankenstein Conquers the World), Varan (from Varan, the Unbelievable), Gorosaurus (from King Kong Escapes), Minya (ugh), and Spiega/Kumonga (from Son of Godzilla). All but Varan and Baragon get a good amount of screen time. The city destruction scenes are great and the final battle is just awesome. They all gang up on King Ghidorah and he gets a terrible beating. The aliens are the usual people in silly suits. The plot is really just a means to an end. I don't mind, though. The movie is a lot of fun. That's what counts. The DVD has no extras and uses the international dubbing (cheap, poorly done), which is Toho's fault (they don't want Japanese buying this DVD before they put out their own). The video is good. The colors are vibrant, picture is sharp, but there are a good amount of scratches and lines in some parts. The audio is mono, but the dialogue and the great score by Akira Ifukube aren't are clear. The cover artwork is mediocre. Not very detailed, but it features a good amount of monsters. There aren't any menus, it just takes you to the movie. At least there's a keep case. Movie: 10 out of 10 Video: 8 1/2 Audio: 7 Presentation: 5 Extras: 0 Overall: 8 out of 10. Get it if you're a Godzilla fan.  "Monsters Against Bad Dubbing"A little slow in spots sure (they could have given the monsters more airtime), but the all-star monster jam at the end makes it all worthwhile. Negatives: the print used isn't in the best shape, there's NO chapter skipping (the whole thing is one track), and I can't be the only one who wished there was also a "subtitled" (original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles) option like they have with the anime DVDs. Maybe someone like Criterion can re-reissue this and take care of those particular flaws (and maybe throw in some "extras" as well!)  "DAM: Kaiju Eiga at its most delightfully lunatic"This flick was originally supposed to be the "last" Godzilla flick (gee, how many times have we heard that one?), and so to live up to the high expectations of such a movie, Toho pulled out all the stops for this all-star monster-fest. Say what you want about the storyline (yet another attempt to mix the highly successful space-war dramas, a la "Battle In Outer Space", and the Godzilla formula, a la...well, you know), but the sheer amount of kaiju-star power makes this a must-have for even the most amateur of sci-fi fans. As usual, the dubbing is terrible (so what else is new?), but the utter sense of unbridled freewheeling--not to mention really cool models & miniatures--really put modern sub-par efforts like "Mission To Mars" and "Contact" in their pitiful place. If you're looking for even a remote connection to reality in this movie, FORGET IT. Just sit back and forgive yourself for indulging yourself in such delectible (albeit rubberized) eye candy. Enormous props to Ishiro Honda, Eiji Tsubaraya, Tomoyuki Tanaka, Akira Ifukube, Haruo Nakajima et al, for providing a truly wonderful guilty pleasure for the rest of us. (p.s. the clarity of the DVD is such that you can even see the wires if you look close enough. Now that's SHARP!) "Ishiro Honda's Finest Moment in Kaiju eiga!"This is where it's at! Are these great movies? No! But they are great to watch. The quirkiness and the fun is what was missing from the American-made "Godzilla" (1998); that thing was awful. The premise of these films was silly, so they required cheap silly special effects. I don't want expensive life-like computer-drawn animation. I want a guy (or gal) wearing a cheap costume stepping on toys. This was the last great gasp from the golden age of Kaiju eiga. This movie features everyone: Godzilla, Godzilla's son, Rodan, Burt Reynolds's toupee, Mothra, Baragon, Lulu, Varan, Raymond Burr's underpants, late-night infomercial king Don Lapre, Gorosaurus, Snuffy the Fire Engine, King Ghidorah, that rude guy from the Post Office, evil alien Japanese space-babes, close-ups on paper-cuts, really stupid astronauts, Ringo!, toy models of major world cities, implausible plots, an exploding Pinto, bad dubbing, Elvis impersonators, and a cast of thousands. I love this movie! |
