Browse Tag: train

RECAP: From Russia with Love

From Russia with Love (1963): Terence Young

Following the modest success of Dr. No, United Artists gave Eon Productions twice the budget for its sequel. The movie barley made it to theaters in time, but the audiences didn’t care. They embraced the movie with glee.

Everything about From Russia with Love is more than its predecessor. More run time, women with more beauty and more women with beauty, more locations, more characterization, more gadgets, more one-liners, and more explosions. And yet, in nearly every way, the movie supersedes the original Bond installment. That’s a feat in and of itself.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Global criminal syndicate SPECTRE, seeking vengeance against James Bond for the death of one of its agents, uses the spy and Britain in a plot to steal a coding machine from the Soviet Union.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011): Guy Ritchie

The Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes series took a page from Christopher Nolan’s Batman series. Widely regarded as the best of the trilogy, if not the best comic book movie ever, The Dark Knight was the second Batman movie and the time to feature the hero’s most iconic villain.

Likewise, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the second in the series, debuts Holmes’s most iconic villain, Professor James Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime.

Sherlock Holmes was a fine film, but its sequel, like The Dark Knight, is a masterpiece. I imagine the filmmakers used the first movies to get their feet wet, work out the kinks, etc., and in the second films, with the best villains, the race was easier to run, and the films superior in nearly every aspect.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Sherlock Holmes and his reluctant best friend John Watson race across Europe to prevent a math teacher from starting a global, industrial war.  Continue Reading