by Michael Neelsen

I was lukewarm on James Bond movies before I saw CASINO ROYALE. I had really enjoyed GOLDENEYE and THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH as an adolescent, but as I grew older I began to grow weary of the over-the-top cornball approach taken by the majority of the films (epitomized by DIE ANOTHER DAY). I had no reason to care about the character of Bond — he’d become too unreal. Too untouchable. Too unlike a human being.

When the rights to Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, CASINO ROYALE, were finally acquired, the Broccoli family went forward with a plan to re-imagine James Bond in Fleming’s original, realistic image. No invisible cars, no exploding pens. They brought James Bond into the post-9/11 world and turned him into a human being.