After a couple of lackluster outings and Godzilla’s diminishing popularity at the box office weighing on the studio, Toho decided to send the Big G off in explosive fashion – along with the rest of their accumulated monsters. Yup, you heard me right, with the ‘60s coming to an end, the studio was looking to end what we might consider a proto shared universe, finalizing the stories of Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, the just-introduced Minilla, and all of their monstrous compatriots (the ones Toho owned, anyway, so Daiei’s Gamera could continue on as usual). It was to be quite the splash, with all of the monsters coming together and duking it out in a battle royale of monumental proportions.
Destroy All Monsters is set in the far-flung future of 1999. Somehow, in the intervening three decades, all of the kaiju that had hitherto threatened the world have been corralled onto an island called Monsterland, where they’re provided with all of the food they need and are kept from straying by artificial controls. Out of the blue, though, the folks in the island’s underground control center are gassed by a mysterious yellow cloud. When they awake, they find the monsters have not only escaped but are rampaging across the globe: Rodan’s terrorizing Moscow, Gorosaurus is tearing things up in Paris (though, if you go by the dialogue, it was originally meant to be Baragon), Mothra (in larval form) is headed toward Beijing, and Godzilla makes his first appearance on US shores by torching the UN building. As it turns out, these monsters aren’t just taking it to their erstwhile captors for the sake of vengeance or rage, but rather because they’re being controlled by an alien race called the Kilaaks, who seem to desire some form of global domination. Understandably not having this, the Earth-folk figure out how the aliens are controlling the monsters and jam the signal. When it seems they’re on the ropes, the aliens call in a secret weapon: King Ghidorah! Yup, our favorite three-headed space dragon is back, this time tackling the whole gamut of Toho kaiju. Insert badass brawl here.
In terms of ending the Godzilla series, this film both hits and misses. On the plus side, we’re treated to an interesting story with some harsh stakes, and that final rumble is pretty damn entertaining. The monsters go so hard that the Ghidorah suit began to fall apart a bit, echoing the blood spurting from the embattled dragon. Just about everybody gets a turn in the octagon, including Minilla, whose atomic smoke ring apparently suffocates one of Ghidorah’s heads (while the others have been bitten and stomped on). Hell, Godzilla even issues a cold-hearted kick to the creature’s fallen body, the only thing missing a lip curled into a sneer. On the negative side, the kaiju action, as awesome as it is, is relegated to the final twenty minutes of the film, with only some tiny bits scattered about to punctuate the human action. Similarly, the final battle being a showcase of the world’s monsters against Ghidorah is a bit tired, considering we’ve seen him beaten by just Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan – even just Godzilla and Rodan alone! – so the ultimate stakes don’t quite measure up to those set up earlier.
It’s a mixed bag, indeed, but there’s plenty to enjoy here, and it would have been a solid finale to the series. But, considering we’re only on day 9 and we haven’t even made it to the new film yet, we all know the franchise carries on. Indeed, the world would only have to wait ‘til the following year to see the Big G return, and, hoo-boy, is it something…
Allusions of Grandeur 