Destroy All Monsters: Kind of like Royal Rumble...but with Fewer Fake Muscles...

As box-office returns on the now full-swing Godzilla franchise continued to dwindle (Son of Godzilla posts the dubious ‘honor’ of being the first Godzilla film to draw less than 3-million attendees) Toho decided to go big for an unofficial finale (though to be fair, you can hardly call a film a finale when a sequel is produced just a year later). Jun Fukuda’s island films with Masaru Sato’s lighthearted themes failed to impress audiences (likely due to an audience that still viewed Godzilla as a MONSTER and not a hero just yet). After all, it was just fifteen years since the release of the original film; think for a moment back to 2004: in your mind at that point did anything other than Jack Nicholson pop up when you thought of the Joker? It is thus that the ‘founding fathers’ as it were, decided to come back together for a swing at Godzilla once again. Ishiro Honda found himself back behind the director’s chair, Akira Ifukube scored the film, and along with Eiji Tsuburaya they decided to go for an 11-monster clash of the titans that would shake the very foundations of Earth itself. Unfortunately, sometimes an idea needs a little more behind it than that and Destroy All Monsters (aka Attack of the Marching Monsters aka Kaiju Soshingeki) as a whole falls far short of the mark it was undoubtedly aiming for.

Let me also pause here and let you know that there will be few screen shots of anything other than the monsters, since there are so many of them featured...

The story (what little there is) is as follows: it is the far-flung future in the year 1999 (hahaha! It’s movies like this that have prompted Hollywood today to say, “the near future,” pick a date so far out that the movie itself will likely fall into obscurity by the time anyone from that year EVER sees it, or just avoid the idea of picking a year altogether). All of the world’s monsters have been gathered into one place, dubbed Monsterland (and we get a helpful narration of how they are contained, which I think it pretty entertaining). One day, communications with Monsterland’s control base get cut off and the monsters escape and begin attacking various world capitals (btw, this is actually Godzilla’s first state-side appearance, as he’s explained to be attacking New York, thus making any claim to fame for the 1998 film other than “worst Godzilla movie ever” totally irrelevant).

On the moon (oh yeah, man evidently makes regular trips to and from the moon, even having a base up there in the year 1999…it’s not made of cheese though, so at least this movie has THAT going for it), astronaut Katsuo (Akira Kubo of Matango and Gamera: Guardian of the Universe) is called back to Earth along with the crew of the SY-3 spaceship to investigate Monsterland. When they arrive, nothing seems amiss (except for the monsters running loose around the world). All of the station’s personnel are at their places, monitoring the monsters as they would on any other day. We find out, thanks to Dr. Otani (Yoshio Tsuchiya of Varan and Battle in Outer Space) that they aren’t just watching the monsters, but they are actually CONTROLLING them, thanks to technology from the Kilaaks.

Who are the Kilaaks? Well, just shut up and watch (or read, depending if you strictly read the review or watch the movie as well, and in which order you do so) because the Kilaak Queen is about to tell us. They’re some sort of alien race and they want to take over the Earth because they believe it was meant for them to live on. The Kilaaks attack the astronauts but they manage to escape with Dr. Otani as a…hostage? Rescued victim? It’s a bit of a gray area considering he’s having his mind controlled right now isn’t it? It’s even more confusing when you consider how cavalier our astronaut heroes are in shooting at the mind-controlled scientists…

Back in Japan, Kyoko (another mind-controlled scientist who is played by Yukiko Kobayashi from Space Amoeba and The Vampire Doll) attempts to rescue Dr. Otani from humanity to keep the Kilaak secret safe. Unfortunately, Otani dies and when Earth scientist Dr. Yoshido (Jun Tazaki, a man whose name I’ve yet to include in a review despite the fact that he is yet another Toho legend having appeared in King Kong vs. Godzilla and Mothra vs. Godzilla and most, if not all of Toho’s giant monster films between Gorath and this film) performs an autopsy, he finds the Kilaak mind-control device.

Unfortunately, at that same moment, all of the monsters appear in Japan and lay waste to Tokyo (ok, it’s not ALL of them, it’s Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and Manda). Somehow or another, we find out that the whole reason the monsters attacked the other parts of the world was to distract Japan long enough so the Kilaaks could build a base near Mt.Fuji. Also, they wanted Japan to let it’s guard down so that when monsters did appear, they’d be unprepared (the logic behind this one is baffling; if you heard that robbers had hit every house on the block except yours, don’t you think you’d go a bit Home Alone and prep your house for their inevitable invasion?).

A small team is dispatched to Mt.Fuji, but when Godzilla, Rodan, and Anguirus demolish most of that ‘small’ team, only Katsuo and a couple of no-names make contact with the Kilaaks. In typical stupid movie-villain fashion, the Kilaak leader herself claims that the TRUE base of the Kilaaks is on the moon and the monsters are being controlled from there, so of course, our heroes go to the moon to disable the transmitter.

Now, the monsters are under human control (they’re able to spin around the device somehow), and the tables have been turned. Or have they? The Kilaaks still seem strangely confident, and it seems they have an ace (or two, or three…all on one card…in case you haven’t guessed, I mean King Ghidorah) up their sleeve. A major monster fight is about to take place and the fate of the entire human race hangs in the balance.

If I were to sum up Destroy All Monsters in one word, it’d be disappointing. You’d think a film with 11 monsters would deliver a bit more monster-mashing than this film does. Unfortunately, not all 11 monsters see much screen time. Manda’s (of Atragon fame) only sequence is the attack on Tokyo, Kumonga is essentially an observer throughout most of the final battle, one of the monsters is Minilla, and if you’re not careful, you’re likely to miss the appearance of Baragon (one of the monsters in Frankenstein Conquers the World a bit of a fan-favorite, Baragon would appear years later in GMK) and Varan (Baragon was intended for a larger role, but the suit was beat up due to being modified a bunch of times for appearances on Ultraman). That effectively brings the total down to six monsters and let’s face it, a Mothra larva isn’t good for much other than spitting the occasional strand of cocoon. That leaves us with the bulk of the monster action taking place between Godzilla, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Anguirus (in his first film since Godzilla Raids Again), and Gorosaurus (who’s only other non-stock footage appearance is King Kong Escapes).

That’s not to say the monster action is in the least bit disappointing, though. In fact, it’s by far the highlight of the film. If you can watch the final battle between Ghidorah and the Earth monsters, and not be wowed by the amount of puppeteering, teamwork, and special effects mastery, then you aren’t paying close enough attention (and it’d be hard to blame you, much of the rest of the film is a snoozer). It’s truly a sight to behold, even if the outcome is a bit of a foregone conclusion (come on, it’s ten against one…). Years later, Godzilla Final Wars would at the very least learn the lesson that, if you want SUSPENSE in a final battle, you can’t have it be ten on one.

The human action in this film is among the worst it’s ever been. The actors look like they’re sleep-walking (part of this is due to the whole brain-control thing which effectively turned some characters into emotionless shells), and the dialogue is so cringe-worthy that I think the only reason MST3K didn’t parody this movie is because the special effects work is top-notch. The mind control angle is really handled poorly. Why make a point that a character is being mind-controlled when the heroes are willing to gun them down? The victims of mind-control are treated like aliens themselves, and there’s no real attempt to ever save them from the clutches of the Kilaaks. It’s a dimension of the film that is really poorly handled.

The film also commits one of the WORST sins of a movie; the enemy spills the beans about their plot and methods without even really attempting to stop the hero along the way. After the Kilaak queen tells Katsuo that the monsters are being controlled from the moon she just lets him walk away! That’s even worse than the typical, “spill your guts and leave the hero in an overly complex, easily escapable death trap” routine. Not to mention, the alien invasion angle, while only being used for a second time in a Godzilla film here, is undoubtedly the WORST alien invasion angle in a Godzilla movie. The film’s enemies are only slightly more defined than the Red Bamboo, and lack any motivation whatsoever for their attack.

Akira Ifukube holds up his end of the bargain, the score is fantastic. His themes are fresh and exciting, and the ones that aren’t at least have some originality or new twist to them. Without a doubt, this man IS the music of Godzilla; perhaps he just needed some time to learn to adapt his themes for a more-light-hearted film.

We also have an issue of pacing. Long after the movie has a foregone conclusion, there are unwarranted aerial battles and enough fakey endings that one might wonder if The Return of the King actually had fewer, not to mention that our ‘unrelenting assault by monsters against humanity’ is limited to just a few scenes and for most of the rest of the movie, the monsters are used as a line of DEFENSE for the Kilaaks rather than an offensive weapon. There’s also the assault on the moon base which is largely unnecessary and could just as easily have taken place on Earth.

It’s time to spout off some humorous lessons, but this movie just leaves me with no feeling, whether it’s one of rage at suckiness (since it doesn’t suck) or orgasmic pleasure of awesomeness (since it’s far from awesome). So, we’ve learned that 1999 was a bit of a letdown if we’re using this movie as a yardstick, and that you can pretty much just watch the final battle of the monsters and enjoy the awe-inspiring fight found therein and come away enjoying the movie much more than if you had watched the whole thing. Other than that, we haven’t learned much at all.

Or have we? Maybe we’ve also learned that Minilla either fell into a time-warp, or was held in suspended animation (possibly frozen from end events of Son of Godzilla still?) since he doesn’t appear to age a day in the supposed 25 years from the end of the previous film to the events of this film. Perhaps we’ve also learned that Toho is nothing if not inconsistent. They include monsters that have never before been seen in a Godzilla film (Gorosaurus, Manda and Baragon – and Gorosaurus even gets a fairly significant role despite being little more than an overgrown T-Rex) but leave out Godzilla foes such as Kamacuras, Ebirah, the giant flying joke and the giant octopus (as well as King Kong, but that is a bit more understandable).

I swear, we haven’t learned anything else…except for the notion that completely alien technology can be understood and used to our advantage in just a day’s time. Oh we’ve also learned (damn, evidently we’ve learned MUCH more than I thought) that Godzilla and the WWE (a term that I loathe as an 80s child…it’s WWF; the World Wildlife Foundation can suck a lemon for all I care…) actually have something in common. Rather than star-studded fight packing more punch, Destroy All Monsters, much like a Royal Rumble, leaves you thinking how much better it COULD have been.

The movie does have some things going for it, but its large fan base just baffles me. Perhaps it is due to the fact that for many years, this was the “lost” Godzilla film, not appearing on official US home video until 1999 (that honor would likely now go to Godzilla vs. Megalon, Godzilla 1985 or Godzilla vs. Biollante – three films that have yet to be released on DVD here in the States). It has still never appeared in a version with Japanese subtitles (officially in the US), but I have a subtitled copy and I don’t feel like it adds anything noteworthy to the film.

It is the end of an era, however. This is the last Godzilla film to feature Eiji Tsuburaya in charge of the special effects (with the exception of his stock footage being used in other films, most notably Godzilla’s Revenge), thus it is the last time that the creative minds behind Gojira worked on a film together. It’s considered the last of the “golden age” of Godzilla films and as I continue to review Godzilla films, it will become much clearer WHY. Though nearly 20 more Godzilla films were released following Destroy All Monsters, only a small handful of them have the punch or charm that even the worst films of the “golden age” (however you define ‘worst’ in this era, whether it be the least entertaining film – Godzilla Raids Again – or the most technically challenged – Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster) manage to maintain. In the end however, this is a lackluster, disappointing movie whose couple of bright spots stand out even more compared to the dull backdrop of the film as a whole and whose reputation has been inflated due in part to the festival of suck that would come in its wake.

Final rating below. As always, you can read all about why I do these reviews, what the ratings mean, and have access to a full index of all my reviews RIGHT HERE.