Destroy All Monsters

In Destroy All Monsters, Ishirô Honda introduces a lot of monsters, mostly in static shots, and instead of creating truly great sequences with them, he lets the regular actors perform the main part of the film, for roughly over an hour. That's a terrible shame because this film had so much potential. The final battle isn't bad, but there could and should have been much more of it throughout the entire film. This way, you're just watching monsters, and there end up being unnecessarily too many of them. The script itself isn't bad, but it doesn't make for a truly excellent kaiju film that would impress as much as the anticipation of what you might expect. (01/04/2015)

10) GODZILLA – DESTROY ALL MONSTERS – ORIGINAL SHOWA SERIES 1954-1974. This time around, Honda mixed his favourite aliens, Godzilla, and all the monsters that had accompanied him throughout the franchise as adversaries or that had featured in some of the related TOHO films. It even plays on darker strings, including mass shootings between people, depictions of blood and suicide, which hadn't been the norm in this series so far. All the monsters, Godzilla included, are kept on Monster Island, which is taken over by the mysterious alien Kilaakas from a small planet between Mars and Jupiter, who uses mental control to send the monsters to the world's capitals. Rodan destroys Moscow, Baragan destroys Paris, Mothra is in Beijing, Manda (a newcomer in the form of a sea serpent) is in London, and finally Godzilla destroys New York. Of course, Tokyo also gets its due, with Rodan, Godzilla and Manda meeting there and razing the whole city to the ground (again). This whole bizarre spectacle culminates in a scene where all the Earth monsters fight against the cosmic King Ghidorah. The uninitiated viewer will get a proper meal out of this one, and the seasoned "Godzilla" crowd will get a kick, even though Honda is starting to be a shadow of its former glory years. (08/28/2010)