Top ten ridiculous Bond gadgets

Posted on 5 Oct 2012 at 17:09, by Expert Reviews staff

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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film, so to celebrate we've taken a closer look at our favourite part of every 007 adventure - the gadgets. Q Branch has been leading the field of covert gadgetry for half a century now, but many of its creations aren't exactly grounded in reality. Here are ten of the most outlandish.

10. POLARISING SUNGLASSES - A VIEW TO A KILL

The Roger Moore Bond films were some of the silliest to grace the series, thanks to a whole host of ridiculous disguises and preposterous gadgets. The polarizing shades from A View to a Kill are a particularly outlandish example. Bond uses these magic specs to counteract a tinted window, and so see into the office of villain Zorin during a secret meeting.

James Bond or an alternate reality DareDevil? You decide

In reality, polarised lenses can help reduce the effects of glare on reflective surfaces, such as the surface of water - hence their popularity with fishermen. However, as polarised glasses are tinted themselves, they would also make it harder to see through tinted windows, not easier.

9. BUZZSAW YO-YO - OCTOPUSSY

The weapon of choice for one of the several hired assassins tasked with killing Bond in Octopussy, the spin-saw looks like a vicious circular saw blade built into a yo-yo type mechanism that lets the attacker drop the blade from some height and retract it afterwards.

That's right kids, you too can have your own weapon of mass murder

It might look vicious, but there's no way the weapon seen in the film would be effective as a deadly weapon. It's supposed to be silent, but without some kind of motor built into the blade's spindle, there's simply no way it could gain enough momentum to cut through flesh enough to guarantee a kill.

8. SOLEX AGITATOR - THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

The Solex Agitator was the Macguffin at the the centre of The Man with the Golden Gun: a device that could harness the power of the sun on an industrial scale, presented as the answer to a global energy crisis.

In reality, a solar panel the size of a cigarette lighter would be less effective than the lighter itself

If a device as efficient as the Solex Agitator actually existed in 1974, there's no question the danger of global warming wouldn't exist today. With that much power being generated, there would be no need for the internal combustion engine, as everything could be powered from the sun. It would spell disaster for the world's coal, oil and nuclear power industries, but we'd certainly breathe easier. Considering the sorry state of solar power in 2012, this was a long way off the mark.