Bowler Hat

The Movie: Goldfinger (1967)

The Weapon: A steel-rimmed bowler hat that can take the head clean off a statue, or break a woman’s neck, or knock Bond unconscious from an unreasonably large distance.

Why It’s Awesomely Stupid: Old Fleming must have had his share of the Opium pipe on the Goldeneye Estate when he came up with this one.

Why not give Odd Job a gun and make him a tremendous marksman. That would be a highly useful and believable skill, something that might come with an ounce of fear attached, unlike, ‘He throws his hat’. Right.

Imagine the shortage of applicants to that position. “So you don’t speak, you can’t shoot a gun and you aren’t trained in any lethal hand-to-hand combat techniques… what do you do? Oh, you throw your hat! Hired.”

Imagine the sheer discomfort of a steel rimmed hat against the thin layers of skin on the cranium – the open sores created must have been agony when the sweat was pouring.

As a party piece it may impress slightly, until that one guy pulls out the moonwalk or something, and you and your hat are shunned for a dance-off.

totalfilm.com have never really suited hats, so this really wouldn’t work for us, but if the hat came with a Samoan bodybuilder/butler thrown in as part of the deal we certainly wouldn’t be against having our very own Odd Job.

Rail Gun

The Movie: Eraser (1996)

The Weapon: A rail gun uses magnetic force to propel projectiles towards targets at high velocity, with no need for an explosive charge and with little recoil to worry about. The rounds-per-minute on a rail gun is staggering.

Why It’s Awesomely Stupid: Can you spell excess? If the '80s made weapons, this would be it. Flashy, powerful, ridiculously over the top and so lethal it’ll kill you twice before you’re dead, the rail gun is the stuff boners are made of.

The fact of the matter is that at the time, the only rail guns in existence were about 40 times this size and had to be mounted on battleships, not on the ends of Arnie’s armies.

Not content with wielding one super weapon, which alone would adequately cut chasms into a battalion of foes, Arnie says ‘I'll be back’ to modesty and picks up two of the genocide rifles, cutting the enemy to pieces like ribbons on gala day.

As theoretical weapons go, the rail gun is top of the wish list for most armies world wide, but getting one to fit in the palm of your hand is a task too technical for even the most gifted Japanese electrical engineer.

Simply put, it’s stupid because it just isn’t possible, but we’d be liars if we didn’t admit we find the concept and the fictional execution of these hand cannons fully awesome.

Next: Sick Stick, ZF-1