YMMV / Destroy All Monsters

• Awesome Music: The Title Credits music is pure Ifukube bliss.
• Dancing Bear: The movie is best remembered for being an extremely ambitious Kaiju Monster Mash of previously unseen proportions, even though in the actual film, most monsters are only onscreen for a few seconds at a time until the very end and the plot focuses primarily on the humans.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This wouldn't be the last time that Godzilla attacked New York, though that one was not the real King of the Monsters.
  • Even more hilarious is that the next time New York City appears in a Godzilla film proper, Rodan would have his own turn to visit the Big Apple after tearing down Moscow. Also said next film appearance also includes Paris only instead of getting attacked by a Kangaroo Kicking Dinosaur which tore the Arc de Triomphe in half, this time the Eiffel Tower gets attacked by the flying insect Kamacuras.
• Once Original, Now Overdone: Back in 1968, this movie was a big deal for bringing together many of Toho’s famous movie monsters into one ultimate royal rumble, which at the time was seen as innovative since many films hardly did anything to that scale. In today’s world, however, with the popularity of the Shared Universe concept thanks in part to Marvel, many newcomers to the series (as well as casual audiences) find it to be too slow and felt it didn’t give enough attention to every monster, making some question why it was so special to begin with. Not helped by later films such as Final Wars upped the ante regarding the monster roster and fight scenes.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Downplayed with Minya. Although [American] fans still didn’t like his inclusion in the film [Japanese fans, however, love Minya], many felt he was more tolerable here as he was only seen with Godzilla the majority of the time, and was the one to kill King Ghidorah for good.
• Signature Scene:
  • Godzilla's, Rodan's, Mothra's and Manda’s attack of Tokyo.
  • The brief worldwide montage of Godzilla attacking New York City, Moscow being invaded by Rodan and Paris being terrorized by Gorosaurus.
  • The final fight on Mt. Fuji between all the Kaiju and King Ghidorah.
• Special Effects Failure: While overall the film's effects are up to Toho's usual standards at the time, with beautifully detailed miniatures (especially the miniature versions of Moscow and Paris) and impressive pyrotechnics, the brief shot of Varan taking flight is very unconvincing by any measure, as he simply rises straight off the ground without so much as flapping his arms or pushing off with his legs. Justified, as the Varan suit was long gone by this point and Toho didn't have the budget to build a new one.
  • For the record, only Godzilla and Anguirus are new suits in this movie. Everyone else are suits or props from previous movies.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Is one to Ebirah, Horror of the Deep and Son of Godzilla for its large monster roster and grander scope plot. The return of both series regulars Ishiro Honda and Akira Ifukube also helps.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Though all the Kaiju are present at Mt. Fuji, Varan, Manda, nor Baragon get in on the fight against King Ghidorah. Justified in that Manda is a marionette and would’ve been difficult to pull off considering how many wires were being operated already (which is also why Rodan departs the battle early ^note though considering how well Rodan fared against King Ghidorah in their last two films, would have made the resulting Curb-Stomp Battle far worse for Ghidorah if Rodan had participated longer, seeing as most of Ghidorah's defeats were due to Rodan's teaming up with Godzilla, though under the What Could Have Been section, Rodan was supposed to aid Varan in the air in fighting Ghidorah which due to the time it would make to make a new suit for Varan, meant the planned scene had to be scrapped). Varan no longer had a costume to work with but why the relatively okay Baragon suit didn't get included remains a mystery ^note though it's highly theorized that Toho felt the suit still wasn't ready due to the extensive overuse and didn't want to take chances of having the suit permanently destroyed during the big fight scene.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Both Beijing and London were mentioned as being attacked by Mothra and Manda during the worldwide Kaiju invasion, yet neither city actually appears in the final film. Only Manda's attack on London was outright shown in the Manga adaptation, showing what would have been. ^note Justified in Beijing's case as featuring the capital of China being destroyed on screen by a Japanese movie company (especially by a mind controlled Kaiju who's traditionally seen as a pacifist) would have caused heated tensions between the two long time rival countries to worsen (considering the fact that Mao Zedong was still China's leader at the time), where as the London scene was scrapped due to the extra amount of marionette wires that were used to make Manda move around which was already complicating the filming process.
  • Same could also be why the worldwide destruction montage was ultimately cut short, as Godzilla, Rodan and Gorosaurus only appears in New York City, Moscow and Paris for one brief attack before quickly appearing elsewhere. Imagine Godzilla destroying the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and especially the Chrysler Building (long before his own divisive American counterpart would indirectly do the same), Rodan leveling St. Basil's Cathedral or Gorosaurus tearing down the Eiffel Tower.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Although Ghidorah is a heartless bastard of a kaiju, one common critique of the film is that the final "battle", while incredibly cathartic, is just a no-holds-barred Curb-Stomp Battle with seven monsters teaming up to fight just one (one with three heads, admittedly). Whichever way you look at it, it's a pretty unfair fight for Ghidorah and the resulting smackdown ends up looking unfortunately similar to a Kaiju sized lynch mob. Ghidorah unquestionably deserves such a fate after doing the same to countless planets, but one shot focusing on one of his necks being crushed into paste by Godzilla's foot while the connected head wails in agony can still induce a wince.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The destruction of Tokyo, in particular when Manda is on the bridge with Godzilla in the background◊, is among one of the many well remembered special effects shots from the era, even more impressive considering how many wire props were needed to make Manda move around.

---