by Giganfan » Wed Aug 15, 2018 1:17 am
This movie is every bit as special to me when I watch it today, as it was when I first saw it. I remember, I was 6 years old, in 1991, and I had just seen a "boot" of Godzilla vs, King Ghidorah. Back then, these two movies were truly the coolest, g****** things I had ever seen. Destroy All Monsters, to me, is THE quintessential Godzilla movie, of all eras. It's basically Tanaka, Honda, Arikawa/Tsuburaya and Ifukube in the most consistent creative rhythm, and creating an all-around iconic monster movie. It's got Godzilla, it's got Rodan, Mothra, Angilas, Gorosaurus, Minya, Manda, Kumonga, Baragon, Varan and of course, the whole thing does not work without the KING of evil monsters, "It's Ghidorah! Ghidorah, the space monster!" The raid on Tokyo sequence with Godzilla, Manda, Rodan and Mothra is some of the absolute best city-destruction sequences in the entire series, and Sadamasa Arikawa deserves major praise for his work here. Angilas really gets a chance to shine in this movie, but it's Gorosaurus that steals the fight, with that kangaroo-kick! And adding insult to injury, it is Minya who gets the killing blow! This is just awesome stuff to me! I'm not saying that the entire movie is perfect, though. The human drama is handled by Honda well enough, but in this kind of movie, does it really matter?! The only thing that sucks about Destroy All Monsters is that Baragon and Varan were pretty much left out of the whole thing, but for a few brief shots. Of course, I know the reasons why, the Baragon costume had been altered so many times for the Ultra-Man TV show, it wasn't ready for DAM until the end of shooting. It's Varan, however, that I'm really bummed about, because obviously, the Varan costume from '58 had to have been destroyed by 1968, and they didn't even bother to make a new one. He's just a little, flying/floating prop in the background of a couple scenes. Hell, the people in the movie don't even acknowledge the existence of poor Varan! It makes me want to put in Varan's movie afterwards, just to see Varan.
Anyway, yeah, I'd say Destroy All Monsters is one of my absolute favorite Godzilla movies, up there with the original, Ghidrah, G On Monster Island, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, Terror of Mechagodzilla, Godzilla '85 and Monster Zero.
"EVERYONE FORGET YOUR TROUBLES! ENJOY YOURSELVES!THERE'S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!" - Gigantis The Fire Monster
"It was HUGE...It was...IT WAS LIKE A MONSTER!!! Suddenly the rocks rose...ALIVE!" - Godzilla 1985