Too Much Title Watch: Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah - Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

Watched:  05/23/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Shûsuke Kaneko

So, I've only seen this movie once before - and while I've long loved Godzilla, I didn't really do a deep dive into the filmography of our giant pal - mostly because of a lack of availability of affordable Godzilla flicks in the US - until COVID hit.   At that time, affordability wasn't an issue and I picked up mostly every film just prior to lockdown.  With lockdown - we dove in kind of head first, with no plan.  Just grabbing movie based on which monsters were in them.  

When I watched Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), it was in, like April 2020.  So imagine the headspace we were all in.

Anyway - I think around this time was when I was trying to understand what the hell Toho was even doing in the 90's and 00's.  And the answer is - it gets really confusing after Godzilla Vs. Destroyah.  I have no idea if Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus are  in the prior continuity.  They certainly are not tied to this movie, which came next.  

There's a hard break in continuity with this movie, basically starting us over (again) as a direct sequel to the 1954 movie.  Just as we'd seen in Godzilla Raids Again (1955)  and Godzilla Returns (1984) and as we'd see in the movie following this one - Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla.  

All-Out Attack is trying on Godzilla as a horrifying antagonist again - or at least looking to turning a 15 story radioactive lizrd into something frightening after he'd maybe become a giant luchador.  

Godzilla is a legend here - the youth are a bit suspicious about the stories of Godzilla's post-war rampage and many consider the 1954 attacks a legend.  

But an American military sub goes down, and then a Japanese sub spots something spooky under the water.  As the military and bureaucratic government consider the possibility of Godzilla's return (and are in denial) one military leader's daughter, Yuri, is off making television programming that ties indirectly to "The Guardian Monsters".  

As signs start to show that *something* is happening, Yuri learns the legend of the The Guardian Monsters from a crazy old man of the forest, and she tries to tell her father about what she thinks is happening.  Meanwhile, events across the country - earthquakes, mysterious cave-in's, etc..   suggest things are afoot.  And, the mystery eventually explodes with the appearance of, and fight between, Godzilla and Baragon.

Like many Godzilla movies, humans are incidental to our giant monsters, just as humans will mostly be incidental to Mothra and King Ghidorah as they appear.  The monsters are not fighting over the cities - they're fighting for the territory that is Japan.  Humans just happen to live there.  And sometimes that means Godzilla walks right through a hospital or Mothra lands on some people.  It's certainly something we see in the Monsterverse films.

I think the thing that makes this more interesting is that it feels like a rough draft for things that will become hallmarks in the best 21st Century Godzilla films - Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One.   

• Godzilla will be seen as a force of nature
• The Japanese government will be paralyzed by their desire to manage information and public relations, to the point it supersedes decision making - which must be done through proper channels so any wrong decisions will not embarrass the officials
• Godzilla will be seen as spiritual payback for the sins of WWII
• Big suggestion that the win at the end is temporary

The production looks a whole lot like a 90's Toho Godzilla movie.  It simply does not have the cinematic sensibilities of a theatrical release feature film with cinematography, lighting, etc...  That is until the monsters show up.  And once they do - they look fantastic.  

In the late 90's and 00's, Toho had really sorted out how to up their traditional man-in-suit action, model building, and sorted out how to integrate digital FX with their puppets.  I may not love this particular movie, but I won't argue with how great the monster suits look or the overall vibe of how they make things like Godzilla's atomic breath look.  Mothra doesn't look like a puppet swinging on ropes - she seems much more fully realized and placed into the frame in a buyable way.  And we only rarely lose sense of scale.  

This isn't my favorite design for Godzilla - I think he goes a little doggy in the face with this design, but overall, it's pretty good.  He's not designed to look friendly - he's a big, radioactive dinosaur.  But I think the other three looks phenomenal (even if I prefer the early 90's Ghidorah to this look).

The actual human actors in this are okay - but I really do like the star, Chiharu Niiyama.  She's very buyable as the woman trying to break glass ceilings and frustrated by the patronizing world she's trapped in.  And how she shows her mettle in her Godzilla coverage. 

The problem is that I so prefer the two following movies about the JXSDF and Mechagodzilla, this just feels like a curiosity along the way - presaging better movies to come.