I’ll sum up this release in a single sentence; Destroy All Monsters is a fun movie, but the DVD release is pure trash.
Touted as a 50th Anniversary special edition, this is a two-disc set; one disc contains the movie, while the other disc is a CD containing the entire score of the movie by Akira Ifujkube. And for what it’s worth, I like the soundtrack. Even if the tracks are mostly variations of the same themes over and over.
The DVD, on the other hand, is lazily put together. Basically, someone took the movie, digitized it, slapped it onto a disc, and punched out. Never mind the lack of subtitles, alternate audio tracks, or even a menu for navigation; there are NO CHAPTERS on this disc. This means that if you want to skip to a later portion of the film, you’re going to have to fast-forward that sucker like you would an old VHS tape.
The movie itself is great fun; the ninth film in the Godzilla film franchise brings about ELEVEN monsters wrecking havoc all over the world and while the action is limited, it’s never boring. There’s also a basic tale with the storytelling and such. Maybe someday I’ll touch on the movie in greater detail, but considering how rarely I get to watch a Godzilla film from this era, I had a blast with this old film, even if the video quality isn’t the greatest.
It’s just unfortunate that there wasn’t enough care put into the surrounding package to make it special or even manageable. A milestone of this ilk for a fondly remembered movie deserves better treatment than what it ultimately got.
But I dig the CD.
dtm666 