Just the Ticket #212: Destroy All Monsters

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.

So...before I start this, some apologies are in order. First, Thursday was a pain in the ass of a non-day-off, so I went yet another week without pushing my old 2014 finales post even though I took the time to make sure it was updated with links to be promoted yesterday. If you don't want to wait another week, here's the link to that. Another apology is for my Eek! The Cat post going inactive after I posted it this week. I incorrectly said there that March 24 was the last Tuesday of the month, and I promoted it on Instagram with the wrong music this week. So instead of making a correction in the copy and explaining myself, I decided to not explain myself (until this post) and re-publish and re-promote it on the thirty-first with the music I wanted to get more analytics out of it. So, sorry, and look forward to that. Again. And finally, because yesterday was so draining (and coming back to work today as the only person who wanted to work—that emphasis is very much up to interpretation, mental gymnastics, and contextual dead-lifting, by the way—wasn't all moonshine and fuck sandwiches, either), sorry I had to put this review out unfinished and un-promoted; I was too spent to stay awake and finalize it, so as of 6:44 p.m. PST on Friday March 27, 2026, I am working on that, and I will have an April content calendar ready for tomorrow morning as well.

As for 1968's Destroy All Monsters, it may be the best Godzilla movie since the original.

Ishirō Honda is back in the director's chair, working from a refreshingly heavy script he co-wrote with Takeshi Kimura (Frankenstein vs Baragon). Sadamasa Arikawa is back as effects director after his mixed success on Ebirah and Son Of Godzilla, here with Eiji Tsubaraya returning in a supervisory role (which was needed, because when they say "Destroy All Monsters," they mean All Monsters).

Getting the few negatives out of the way first, Destroy All Monsters (known in Japan as Monster All-Out Attack, not to be confused with Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, or next week's All Monsters Attack) features some incredibly bad optical effects (characters, vehicles, and scenery assets are thickly keyed in a few sequences, and the astronauts' shuttle miniature—with working thruster pyro! Awesome!—can be seen reflected on the "sky" in two separate shots) and a bit of re-used footage (Ghidorah's awakening scene, particularly). Also, you might think the plot synopsis sounds suspiciously familiar to Invasion Of Astro-Monster (evil aliens from a secret planet hiding behind Jupiter seek to conquer Earth by using its kaiju population as frequency-controlled weapons, and must call upon King Ghidorah when the humans disrupt their signal and Godzilla, et al, go rogue), which it is. Also again, not all of the kaiju really get to contribute, and Minilla (called Minya in the subtitles here, when he went unnamed in the previous film besides one of the human characters calling him "a baby Gojira") is here. Yay.

That said, in the film, it's 1999 (and the sets and props were well-designed to communicate "1960s impression of thirty years in the future," even if the civilian fashion doesn't) and in the decades since the last movie's events, humanity has made Solgell Island, a.k.a. Monster Island, into a kaiju preserve called Monsterland. In addition to Godzilla, Minilla, and Kumonga (the latter of whom somehow survived a double-dose of nuclear halitosis to its fleshy bits last time), there's also Mothra, Rodan, Anguirus (who somehow survived Godzilla ripping out its jugular and breaking its neck in Godzilla Raids Again), Gorosaurus (the B-string monster from King Kong Escapes), Manda from Atragon, Baragon (who also somehow survived a broken neck) and Varan the Unbelievable. Yeah; if you thought crossing over with just Mothra, King Kong, or Rodan was cool, Destroy All Monsters was the Infinity War of the 1960s because everyone is here!

But then the team supervising the island, including Dr. Otani (Yoshio Tsuchiya, the Planet X leader in Astro-Monster) and Kyoko (Yukiko Kobayashi, The Vampire Doll) are abducted and brainwashed by the Kiraku, an all-female race of liquid metal aliens (the Queen played by Kyoko Ai), and its up to Japan's "incredible" military (the General played by Yoshifumi Tajima, Mothra vs Godzilla), a United Nations scientist (Jun Tazaki, King Kong vs Godzilla), and particularly the macho, Moonraker-esque escapades of Kyoko's astronaut love interest (the script is too dark and dense to accommodate a romance plot, but Kobayashi's acting fills in the blanks incredibly well when she's not doing the "brainwashed femme fatale" thing), Captain Katsuo Yamabe (Akira Kubo, showing his full range in just three films in this franchise, which is more praise than it sounds like), to stop the alien invasion and regain control of the kaiju.

Creatively, the film hinges on "Ghidorah is not an Earth kaiju" (even if his use as an alien bioweapon isn't so creative) to bring him and the "Fire Monster" (just a Kiraku UFO engulfed in fire energy to make it look like a kaiju and give Katsuo & crew a chance to look cool and be useful, but I appreciated the jab at the Westernized release of Godzilla Raids Again) in as the villains' ace in the hole (I'm trying not to use the other surprise-card idiom for obvious, Presidential reasons) when Earth's forces manage to Assemble their all-star team of kaiju against the aliens. 

As I said, the full lineup doesn't get to do much. You forget half of them are there, or you get them mixed up in distance shots. But kaiju you thought were useless (like Anguirus and Minilla) actually put in work and get some impressive stunts for the time, and seeing Ghidorah get overwhelmed and absolutely curb-stomped to the point that two of his heads are dead was something I wasn't expecting from a mid-Shōwa Godzilla film. Nor was I expecting such a happy, "the title is a lie!" ending for Japan's favorite walking natural disasters.

By no means perfect, but it quite literally gave me everything and more.

B+

Next week, I start off April with some comic book foolishness and more "Oops! All Monsters!," and Time Drops returns tomorrow, so please stay chill and Stay Tuned for that by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leaving a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have feelings about, helping out my ad revenue as you read, and following me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

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Ticketmaster,

All-Out.