Cockroaches from outer space occupy empty human husks, summoning a pair of deep-space monsters (Ghidorah and Gigan) to wipe out Tokyo and set the table for an invasion. They're somehow able to command these enormous beasts using a reel-to-reel recording, though it appears they needn't have bothered, as the chaos and destruction continues unabated after the device has been ruined.

Sounds like campy '60s sci-fi madness? You're right on the money. It's also terribly cut-rate and careless, even more so than previous entries. The plot is agonizingly slow and dry, with a lot of empty threats and meaningless laser-pointing, and the action scenes borrow liberally from the Godzilla vault or stock footage archives. A good part of the big guy's tussle with Ghidorah is lifted straight from their 1964 headline match, which gives us the unexplained image of a horizon that blinks from dark, smoky midnight to bright, sunny afternoon and back again. Most outrageous is the scene where Godzilla, completely out of nowhere, begins speaking English with a friendly kaiju. What the hell was that?!

Usually the monster attacks provide frosting to the pedestrian cake (and that's being very generous) but in this case, the whole treat has turned. This was a cheap, soulless cash-in, no two ways about it. Avoid at all costs.