From Russia With Love is the second Bond film ever made. After the success of Doctor No, the producers (Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman) felt they could be successful in making a sequel. How right they were. And "From Russia With Love" was it.

From Russia With Love begins with a pretty good pre-title sequence. We see Bond and Red Grant prowling around some grounds appearing to be hunting one another. It culminates with Grant getting the drop on Bond by sneaking up behind him and strangling him with his wristwatch chord. It is a good teaser because we are led to think that Bond is dead. As it turns out, "Bond" was only an agent with a 007 mask on and the whole ordeal was a time trial for Grant to see how fast he could eliminate Bond. On a sidenote, it wasn't a very good idea because are we expected to think that particular agent with the mask was as good and as fast as James Bond!?

At headquarters, they get word of a Lektor coding machine floating about somewhere in Turkey and send James Bond to retrieve it. Also, to lure him, SPECTRE uses a false defector, Tatiana Romanova. Bond does hook up with her and they become aquainted. One reason I didn't rank this film towards the top is because I feel that the action moves too slowly at the beginning. Bond is led to Turkey, then has a bout in the gypsy camp, then meets up with Romanova, etc. I though it dragged a bit.

The action picks up when Bond and Romanova get on the Orient Express. The fight scene with Red Grant (posing as Captain Nash) is pretty good, I thought. After Bond disposes of Grant, he and Romanova get off the train and hijack a truck from some guy who was waiting for Grant to de-trainize. Next, comes the best scene in the film. By far the best part of the movie is when the two killers in the SPECTRE helicopter are chasing Bond trying to kill him. The scene is kind of reminiscent of the one in "North by Northwest" where the plane is chasing after the man trying to kill him. On a sidenote, the scene where the helicopter comes very close to hitting Bond was real. Sean Connery was nearly killed in this scene because the pilot of the helicopter had come too close. Bond assembles his sniper rifle and promptly shoots down the helicopter.

Another reason I didn;t put this film at the top of my list is because its lack of excitement at the film's climax. Unlike most Bond films, there is no real bad guy that Bond kills at the end of the film. He only kills the evil and heinous Rosa Klebb and she's not so big. Not only that, but the scene is weak. Bond looks like a bullfighter trying to keep her poison-tipped shoe away from his body with the chair. And another reason the climax was a disappointment was because Bond didn't even kill Klebb. Tatiana did.

Many Bond fans will put From Russia With Love at the #1 slot, but for a film that so many rant and rave about, "From Russia With Love" should be much better.

Overall Rating: C-

James Bond Will Return in "Goldfinger"