In the far flung future of 1999, mankind has established a moonbase, with regularly scheduled flights. Meanwhile, an underwater base has been established near Ogasawara Island. All the Earth’s monsters have been gathered together and confined with “scientific walls” on a nearby island known as Monsterland.
The underwater base and Monsterland are attacked by an unknown force. The humans and monsters all succumb to a yellow gas. Rodan attacks Moscow, causing great amounts of property damage. In Paris, Barugon breaks through the ground and destroys the Arc de Triomphe before moving on to the rest of the city. Mothra attacks Beiping, China and the snake-like Manda assaults London. Godzilla invades New York city and blasts the waterfront, including the U.N. building.
A spaceship on an exploration mission is ordered to return to the moonbase, but spots a UFO on the way back. Back at the moonbase they are told to return to Earth, and to land at Monsterland. At the underwater base, they discover the humans at the base and the monsters are now under the control of an alien race known as the Kilaaks. The Kilaaks want to create a Scientific Civilization on Earth, and demand the humans surrender or face annihilation. The crew refuses to surrender and manages to escape, taking Dr. Otani with them. Kyoko, still under control of the Kilaaks, slips away and returns to her controllers.
During interrogation at a remote island resort, Otani throws himself out a window. A fierce gunbattle to recover Otani’s body ensues, with Kyouko leading a Kilaak- influenced team. The team manages to escape. An autopsy of Otani’s body reveals some sort of control device embedded in his neck. The monsters are also believed to have the same devices embedded into them. Using his moonship, Katsuo begins a search for the transmitters.
Security agents checking travelers for signs of the embedded controllers, but Kyoko gets away because the agents cannot find one. Rodan and Godzilla appear in Tokyo and begin smashing buildings. Manda shows up and tears down an elevated train. Japanese Defense Forces fire on the beasts, but to no avail. Mothra arrives to join in the melee. In the end, Tokyo is turned into twisted, ruined wreckage.
Meanwhile, the Kilaaks have evacuated Monsterland and established a new base underground at the hot springs in Izu. Kyoko arrives at the human base of operations with a message from the Kilaaks– agree to live under alien rule and the giant creatures will be returned to Monsterland. In a brief struggle with Katsuo, he rips the earrings off her ears and discovers the earrings were being used to control her. But she remembers nothing about her days spent under Kilaak influence.
Katsuo tries to penetrate the Kilaak base with the moonrocket, but is turned away by Godzilla. JDF tanks fire on the base, but Kilakk technology freezes the tanks in place, allowing Godzilla and Angurius to crush them. As the moonbase attempts to follow a Kilaak ship to Mount Fuji, the aliens set Rodan to chase it away.
A foot patrol near Mount Fuji is scared off by Godzilla, but several members of the team, including Katsuo finds a hidden entrance. It turns out to be a trap. The Kilaaks show them the underground base with several spaceships, including the one spotted earlier on the moon. At a new base on Ogasawara Island, the humans discover that the transmitter controlling the monsters is on the moon. Katsuo takes his moonship and crew back to the moon and destroys the transmitter. They also discover the Kilaaks turn to lumps of coal when exposed to cold temperatures.
The humans have created a device that can control the monsters, and set the creatures to attack the base at Mount Fuji. But the Kilaaks have one more trick up their sleeve – the space monster King Ghidorah. Anguirus takes on the golden beast, which lifts it into the air and drops it. The earth shakes, revealing the Kilaak base. Ghidorah lands atop Anguirus and stomps on him. Godzilla, coming to the aid of Anguirus, grabs Ghidorah, who tries to fly off. The King of the Monsters holds onto Ghidorah and keeps it from escaping. The monsters team up to crush the space monster. As it lays defeated, a flaming monster appears and destroys the human base and the machine controlling the monsters. Godzilla, however, “knows who his real enemies are” and destroys the alien base.
In his moonship, Katsuo chases the flaming monster and discovers it is only a Kilaak ship operating at an extremely high temperature. He fires a freeze missile at it, causing it to lose its fire and crash to the ground. The aliens have been defeated. The monsters return to Monsterland.
screenplay by Kaoru Mabuchi and Ishiro Honda
directed by Ishiro Honda
music by Akira IfukubeHuman Cast: Akira Kubo (Katsuo Yamabe), Yukiko Kobayashi (Kyoko Manabe), Kyoko Ai (Kilaak Commander), Jun Tazaki (Dr. Yoshida), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Dr. Otani), Kyoko Ai (Kilaak Leader)
Monster Cast: Godzilla, Rodan, Anguirus, Mothra (larva), Gorosaurus, Manda, Kumonga, Varan, Barugon, Minilla
Notes: Monsterland is also known in other movies as Monster Island. Even though a voice-over identifies Barugon as the beast that attacks Paris, the creature that actually breaks through the surface is Gorosaurus. Manda’s first appearance was in Toho’s Atragon. Varan first appeared in Varan the Unbelievable. In Son of Godzilla, the spider-like Kumonga is known as Spiga. ADV’s 50th Anniversary Special Edition DVD of Destroy All Monsters has no chapter stops, but does include a bonus CD of the original soundtrack. This is the favorite Godzilla movie of theLogBook.com writer Robert Parson, who says Destroy All Monsters is “enthusiastically ridiculous.”
LogBook entry by Robert Parson