From Russia With Love

Come For The Movie, Stay For The Extras
From Russia With Love, the second James Bond film, is one of the best (in my view, second only to Goldfinger). Unlike the later films in the series, From Russia With Love is extremely faithful to the Ian Fleming novel with only slight variations on the story. In order to obtain a Russian decoding machine, 007 must travel to Istanbul, Turkey to aid a beautiful Russian defector ... even though he and the British Secret Service know it's probably a trap. But unbeknownst to Bond SPECTRE is playing the Russians and the British against each other. This is the most realistic of the Bond films with a story that could probably happen in the real world of espionage. The film does contain a gadget -- a trick briefcase (also in the Fleming novel) that contains throwing knives, ammunition, a folding sniper's rifle, 50 gold sovereigns and a tear gas cartridge that explodes when the case is opened improperly. The film, however, takes a very realistic approach to the story with none of the cartoon...

Easily one of the greatest in the James Bond series
Most James Bond fans have their personal favorites among all the films in this forty-year series: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is mine. In many ways, this was actually the first film with the full James Bond formula in tact. DR. NO was enjoyable, but Sean Connery's Bond was very different in that film than in the subsequent films. In DR. NO, Bond was a serious, unironic, humorless secret agent, very much like the character in the Ian Fleming novels. In FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, Bond departed from the character in the novels, and became witty, ironic, and very much tongue-in-cheek. In short, he became the Bond we all know and love. This is also the first film in which Desmond Llewelyn appeared as Q, who went on to play in all the remaining films (excepting Sean Connery's comeback with a different studio). Q provides Bond with his trick attaché case, the first of the many gimmicks we associate with Bond. The story is a great improvement as well. On top of this, the villains in...

A great movie---even better at 1080P
I love the movie "From Russia with Love"---end of story. This review is about the Blu-Ray edition. By way of comparison, I also own the recently upgraded DVD version of this film that was included in the James Bond Ultimate Edition set. That movie (the DVD) was restored to a sensational level of quality. In fact, I doubted it could be visually improved upon. I was wrong. The Blu-Ray edition looks even more sensational than the most recent DVD edition that was included in the Ultimate Edition set. In fact, it was clearly restored from a master print, with an almost indescribable level of visual detail included. This Blu-Ray edition is so good that it's like watching a brand new movie. Watching it with my family I repeatedly heard the comment "wow. Look at that. I never noticed that before . . ." The studio did a first rate job of restoring the movie for the Blu-Ray edition. And, after all . . . it's a James Bond film. I'll be getting the other Blu-Ray Bond films; if the...

Click to Editorial Reviews