In the beginning, James Bond started out as a super suave British spy with brains, charm, and a knack for finding creative ways to get out of a tight spot. Over time, the character has evolved (and sometimes devolved), and on occasion the over-the-top silliness of the movies can undercut 007's daring and wit.
Don't miss our double-0 double feature tonight starting at 7p ET/ 4p PT. Tomorrow's four-movie Bond marathon begins bright and early at 9:30a ET and leads right into the premiere of Beverly Hills Pawn at 9p ET/ 8p PT.
Elements from the selected movies were given a score on a scale from 1 to 10, with a score of 10 representing the utmost in camp. Here's a breakdown of the selected movies:
Sean Connery - 1964
Henchman Score: 7 –
Robert Shaw's Grant is the first of the overly tan, overly blonde dudes on this list, but he's no more or less campy than all the others.
Villain Score: 5 – Colonel Klebb, the hard-nosed-lady member of SPECTRE, is not particularly campy, but those shoes rigged with poison spikes make for some pretty silly, shin-focused fight scenes.
Bond Girl Score: 1 –
Daniela Bianchi’s Tatiana is a little silly at times, but really, she’s as close to a cool Hitchcock blonde as any Bond Girl ever came.
Bond Gadgets: 1 – Tear gas canisters, a collapsible rifle, and a bug detector were all examples of useful, basic spy gear and terrible examples of Bond camp.
Dialogue Score: 3 – Overall the dialogue was fairly straightforward, with the exception of this eye-roll-inducing bit of cheese: “I think my mouth is too big” “No, it’s the right size… for me, that is.”
Campiness Score Total: 17/50
Roger Moore - 1979
Henchman Score: 1010 – The mustachioed Asian fellow with a Dorothy Hamill haircut gets camp rating of 10 out of 10. However, Jaws, who is arguably the campiest henchman in history, also makes an appearance, and that increases
Moonraker's Henchman Score exponentially.
Villain Score:10 – Drax, the crazy frenchy Frenchman who wants to reboot the human race is as campy a villain as anyone could ever want.
Bond Girl Score: 10 – Dr. Goodhead. Seriously?
Bond Gadget Score: 10 – An amphibious Venetian gondola that can drive through St. Mark’s Square, a wrist-worn dart gun, and an x-ray used for cracking safes were all fairly silly. Even Bond’s tiny camera was emblazoned with a super cheesy 007 logo.
Dialogue Score: 10 - From Q saying “I think he's attempting re-entry sir,” to Bond quipping “I discovered he had a crush on me” after killing a python, there were no bounds when it came to the campiness of
Moonraker’s dialogue.
Campiness Score Total: One hundred trillion and change / 50
Timothy Dalton - 1987
Henchman Score: 7 – We have yet another overly tan, overly blonde dude with
Andreas Wisniewski as Necros, and he's just as campy as all the others.
Villain Score: 5 – The red-neck American arms dealer and his quirky Soviet playboy partner-in-crime were both caricatures, but at least their motivations (money rather than world domination) made sense.
Bond Girl Score: 2 – Maryam D'Abo's cute, nice cellist who is constantly in a state of alarm is actually a likable and somewhat realistic character... for a Bond girl.
Bond Gadget Score: 7 - A whistle-activated, stun-gas-loaded key chain and an Aston Martin with retractable skis are both rather silly. Using a cello case as a sled and riding it through the Austrian border was decidedly pure Bond camp.
Dialogue Score: 3 - Lines like “he got the boot”, “time to leave” and “he met his Waterloo” aren’t great, but then they aren't really that bad by 007 standards.
Campiness Score Total: 24/50
Pierce Brosnan - 1997
Henchman Score: 7 – This time the henchman is an overly tan, overly blonde dude. Big surprise.
Villain Score: 9 -
Jonathan Pryce gives us a Rupert Murdoch/ Richard Branson hybrid set on world domination who is decidedly over the top.
Bond Girl Score: 5 –
Teri Hatcher brought the class to her turn as a Bond girl, but the hair, makeup and back story of her character lived decidedly in Bond surreality.
Bond Gadget Score: 3 – Bond’s toys were rather practical in this one. A smart phone that picks locks, analyses fingerprints, acts as a stun gun, and is a remote control for a BMW just seems useful for a guy like James.
Dialogue Score: 10 - “Consider him slimed”, “There’s no news like bad news” and, worst of all, “You always were a cunning linguist, James” took the camp to a whole new level.
Campiness Score Total: 34/50
Daniel Craig - 2006
Henchman Score: 0 – He might have had a couple of thugs that acted as his security, but Le Chiffre liked to do his own dirty work and had no real henchmen to speak of.
Villain Score: 1 – An evil, asthmatic banker who weeps blood is far more creepy than campy.
Bond Girl Score: 0 – The already-married Solange is beautiful and tragic, and
Eva Green's Vesper wouldn’t even know how to be campy.
Bond Gadget Score: 0 – In our book, a portable defibrillator doesn’t really get classified as “campy.”
Dialogue Score: 0.5 – This newly minted double-oh spy is sarcastic, but he’s not really punny. It gets half a point for naming a drink after his lady friend, Vesper, "because once you've tasted it, that's all you want to drink."
Campiness Score Total: 1.5/50