11. Casino Royale
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| There's no one more deadly than a man walking home from a black tie party the morning after. |
Bond: Daniel Craig
The Villain: Le Chiffre (played by
Mads Mikkelson)
Insane Plan:
Le Chiffre is the money guy for an evil group of, well evil people. In the books this organization was called SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion), but there was some legal finagling over who owns the rights to SPECTRE, so in the new movies they're called QUANTUM (which, as far as I know, doesn't have a cool acronym). Why do they have a money guy? I guess he's like the CFO and they just run their evil organization as a business. This leads to all kinds of jokes like "Do they have a health plan?" "Do they offer dental?" "What are the hours like?" It's just kind of ridiculous both on the surface and the more you think about it.
Anyway, Le Chiffre has lost a ton of the organization's money because, well Bond did Bond things and now Le Chiffre is in trouble. So here's his plan: Hold a poker tournament with billions at stake and just win all the money. Presumably he's arrogant enough to think that he'll win, but since he's part of an evil organization if he doesn't win he'll just kill whoever does win and steal the money. Here's my problem with this, if you're part of an evil organization and you have people working for you, presumably they work for the evil organization as well. Wouldn't one of them call YOUR boss and be like, "Hey, did you guys know that Le Chiffre lost all the money? Yeah, we're having a poker tournament to get it back...no, I'm not kidding. Look, I just don't wanna get fired. Or killed."
Of course Bond shows up to the poker tourney to throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing, and Le Chiffre has to do evil things to keep the money, and of course there's backstabbing and evil plots going on all over the place, but seriously, this was the guy's idea. I'll just win the money back at poker. This is the response of the truly stupid. Who let this guy have the money? And didn't QUANTUM do a background check to make sure their CFO didn't have, Oh, I don't know, a gambling problem?
10. Live and Let Die
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| Nothing says spy-thriller-action movie like a good Paul McCartney song. |
Bond: Roger Moore
The Villain: Dr. Kananga (played by
Yaphet Kotto)
Insane Plan:
Dr. Kananga is the leader of some Caribbean country or something, where he grows tons and tons of Opium that he turns into heroin so that he can make money. Why? I'm not really sure. He has his own country already, in the Caribbean, no less, and he flies back and forth to the U.S. on a private jet, where he hangs out at the U.N. and he owns a string of soul food restaurants. Yeah, I didn't make that last part up, he really does own a string of soul food restaurants.
Not only that, Kananga is giving away 2 tons of heroin with a dual purpose: 1.) to put his competitors out of business and 2.) to create more addicts. And where is he giving away all this free heroin? Why, through his soul food restaurants, of course! But, as insane as this plan is, what I never got about Kananga was, why does he need
more money? He seems to have plenty. I guess this is just one of those, the rich get greedy kind of things, but his motivation always seemed to be a little off.
Oh, and did I mention that Kananga's alter ego, the drug dealing lunatic he pretends to be, is named Mr. Big? Oh, yeah. That happened.
9. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
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| Manly. |
Bond: George Lazenby
The Villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (played by
Telly Savalas)
Insane Plan
Stay with me, because this one is tricky. Bond is done with his last assignment, so he heads back to work for MI6, but his bosses tell him he can't keep going after Blofeld (like he wanted to do at the end of the movie before this) so he threatens to quit, but ends up going on vacation instead so he can pursue Blofeld on his own.
Here's where the crazy starts, though. Somewhere in the Swiss Alps, Blofeld is brainwashing 10 women to distribute biological weapons throughout the world. He has ten women, that he calls his "Angels of Death", basically trapped at this Mountain Resort, where he's convincing them he's helping them therapeutically, but in reality he's playing audio tapes to them while they sleep to convince them to spread biological weapons throughout the world when he releases them.
Why? Because Blofeld wants to be recognized as a count. No, really, that's his end goal. He wants to be recognized as the current Count de Bleauchamp. Again, this man is the leader of the largest criminal organization in the world, but all he really wants to do is be a count. His plan is to hold the world ransom with his 10 brainwashed women who would destroy the world's agriculture unless he's given amnesty for all past crimes and his title of Count.
There's something seriously wrong with this guy.
8. Die Another Day
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| I don't know how guns work. The whole thing gets that hot? |
Bond: Pierce Brosnan
The Villain: Colonel Moon (played by
Toby Stephens/Will Yun Lee)
Insane Plan
Colonel Tan-Sun Moon (love that name) meets Bond early on, ends up chasing him across a minefield, gets an explosion in the face and drives a hovercraft over a waterfall (presumably to his death). There's some hand waving magic where Bond is captured by North Koreans, tortured, then released, then loses his "00" status, and has to go figure out what's going on because he believes someone betrayed him.
Turns out Colonel Moon not only didn't die, but has used gene therapy and DNA restructuring to make himself into a British guy named Gustav Graves, who has built a giant orbital satellite that can be used to harness solar energy.
Only, not really because his giant orbital satellite is actually a big freaking laser which he plans to use to destroy the minefield between North and South Korea so his troops can march in and retake South Korea
and reunite them into one big happy communist family.
I have several problems with this, but the one that makes me giggle is the thought of the North Korean army just waiting by the DMZ for the laser to clear the area so they can charge in and attack. That image just kills me for some reason.
But here are some bigger problems. Using an orbital laser to destroy the minefield/DMZ just seems like way too much overkill, doesn't it? Like getting rid of the ants in your backyard by dumping napalm on them? Couldn't he have just bought like a million remote control racecars and just driven them through the DMZ until they hit all the mines? And if you have the money to build an oribtal laser, why not just, I don't know, by some helicopters man! You're making this waaaay too complicated.
7. You Only Live Twice
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| He's going to be too tired to go on with the second one. |
Bond: Sean Connery
The Villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (played by
Donald Pleasance)
Insane Plan
So, Blofeld, lunatic leader of SPECTRE, has a plan. He builds a giant spaceship, sends it into space and has it hijack an American Spacecraft. Why? So he can blame it on the Russians. And, also, the Japanese. See, he made his SPECTRE spaceship totally look like a Russian spaceship so the Americans would think the Russians did it.
Then he had both spaceships crash into the sea near Japan (it's unclear whether or not that part is intentional). So now everybody suspects the Russians and/or the Japanese.
Oh, and what was the point of all this? Blofeld wants to start World War III for...some reason that's again, never explained. Look, I get the whole idea of "let's spread chaos!" or even just good old fashioned "we hate the establishment!" but seriously, there's no other motive behind this? Just "We'll start WW3"? That's it? That's your whole plan?
And again, this is a privately funded criminal organization that managed to not only put a ship in space (something not easily accomplished) but also to
hijack an American space craft while they were up there! How much better off would the world be if SPECTRE would just use their money and talents for something other than Blofeld's insane whims.
6. The Spy Who Loved Me
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| This came up in a Google Image search for the Spy Who Loved Me. And then I cried a little. |
Bond: Roger Moore
The Villain: Karl Stromberg (played by
Curd Jurgens)
Stop me if you've heard this before, but Karl Stromberg wants to start World War 3...
Now, there are a couple of areas where his plan differs from Blofeld's in You Only Live Twice. First of all, instead of space ships, he just stole a couple of submarines. One from Russia, and one from America. He plans to use the American sub to blow up Moscow, and the Russian sub to blow up New York. So far, his plan seems infinitely more plausible than Blofeld's, if only because he didn't start with freaking space ships.
Subs I could see a criminal organization of this size stealing. Stealing and, you know, being able to pilot them without having to be frigging astronauts. Because, really, I mean, come on.
But Stromberg also has an end game. See, it's not enough for him to just
start WW3. He has plans for what's going to happen
after. Namely, he intends to repopulate the world in his own image, and just to stick with the submarine theme, he plans for that new world to be created UNDERWATER. He's even built an underwater city called Atlantis. (You were so close, dude. I was with you right up until the underwater city. And then you gave it the most cliched name...)
So, yeah. This kind of thing apparently happens a lot.
5. Tomorrow Never Dies
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| Jonathan Price is so pissed that Bond brought two dates to the party that he can hardly stand it. |
Bond: Pierce Brosnan
The Villain: Elliot Carver (played by
Jonathan Price)
We're sticking to a them here, because guess what Elliot Carver wants to do...
If you said, "Start World War 3" then congratulations! You now possess all the intelligence you would ever need to become a Bond villain. You could drool on a napkin, tie a cheeseburger to your head, and try to kick start a motorcycle with the power of rainbows, but as long as you know that your next objective is "Start World War 3" then henchmen will be flocking to your underground, volcano-covered palace ready to do battle with British Secret Service's seventh best agent.
Of course, Elliot has to throw his own monkey wrenches into the plan. He doesn't want the US and the USSR to fight. Oh, no. That's been done to death. Tried it and failed. We've seen the flaw in the plan! No, what he wants is for the United Kingdom to fight China! There you go. That ought to get her done.
Did I mention the villain in question is a media mogul who owns his own CNN type tv station? I didn't? That's too bad, because he doesn't want to do it just for kicks (like Blofeld) or to start his own society (like Stromberg). No, he wants to do it so his news team will have something big to cover on their first day on cable! No, really.
Though as a side benefit, he also expects to kill off the Chinese leaders who refused to give him full and exclusive rights to news broadcasts in China.
A little petty, now that I think about it.
4. Moonraker
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| Wait...can James Bond breathe in space? |
Bond: Roger Moore
The Villain: Hugo Drax (played by
Michael Lonsdale)
Did you think we were done with this theme? Good, because we're not. No, no, no. We have one more "I will destroy the world and remake it in my image" player left. Following Stromberg's idea of having a plan for after the destruction, and borrowing Blofeld's idea of using outerspace, Hugo Drax has decided to destroy the world and rebuild it in his own perfect image. And by destroy the world I, of course, mean by dropping poisonous plants into the Earth's atmosphere while he and his hand picked human replicators chill out on a spacestation orbiting the earth.
It's like he just mushed together Blofeld and Stromberg's plans and then added his own little extra brand of crazy with the poisonous plants.
How does Bond find these people?
3. GoldenEye
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| Indeed it is... |
Bond: Pierce Brosnan
The Villain: Alec Trevelyan (played by
Sean Bean)
GoldenEye is all about revenge. Stay with me, because this is complicated. Apparently Alec Trevelyan was a Cossack, or an Eastern European, probably from the Ukraine or Russia, they were allied with the Nazis during WW2, and his parents were killed by the British army or something, so he
hates Britain. So he did what any reasonable British hating person would do: joined up with the British Secret Service. Presumably he was pretty good at his job because at some point he became a double 0 agent, and in fact the movie begins with both he and Bond infiltrating a Russian weapons facility where Trevelyan fakes his death.
He then spends 9 years building up a criminal syndicate called Janus (get it? Cause Janus is two faced...) and now intends to use a giant space satellite to destroy the Bank of England and ruin Britains economy. First of all, that's pretty much the same plot as
Fight Club, and second of all, that's a really bizarre plan, isn't it? "I hate this country that killed my parents! I will ruin your economy!"
Doesn't quite have the ring of "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" does it?
Also, he plans to steal some money first, just, cause, yeah. Money. Money's awesome.
2. View To A Kill
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| Is the sniper aiming for Bond, or for Grace Jones' foot? |
Bond: Roger Moore
The Villain: Max Zorin (played by
Christopher Walken)
Again, the complications pile up early, and again we have some loose affiliation to Nazis (always in the top 5 movie villains of all time, along with Commies, zombies, aliens, and creepy children). See, Max Zorin was some kind of genetic Nazi experiment created by a guy who escaped after WW2 and ended up hiding out in Russian (look at that! Nazis and Commies! There's no stopping them!)
Zorin runs a microchip factory in Silicon Valley, and he plans to take over the microchip market by detonating some explosives in a mine he purchased and flooding Silicon Valley with water, thus destroying all his competition. It's like the only way these guys can figure out how to be the best is by destroying their competition in the dumbest way possible. Really? A flood?
This movie is plagued with bizarre complications, though, including Zorin owning horses that always seem to win races, but can never be found with drugs in their systems (because everyone assumes he's doping them). It turns out later that he implants microchips in the horses that release drugs into them. Now, here's why this makes no sense: they test for drugs
after the race, but they don't find any. But then we find out he's releasing drugs into them
during the race, so how come there's no traces of the drugs? It's like the screenwriter realized that halfway through the movie you'd already be so confused by the plot that this just wouldn't occur to you.
Also, at one point Zorin has Bond and some kind of political official trapped in a building and instead of just shooting both of them he shoots the politician, leaves the gun behind, and sets the building on fire, either hoping that Bond will die in the fire, or will be caught with the gun and accused of killing the politician. At this point he realizes Bond is a spy, so why would you hope for that outcome? Wouldn't Bond just be like, "Look, I'm a British government agent, that guy set me up." And he'd be done for. I mean, seriously.
1. Goldfinger
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| Nothing says "High finance criminal" like a nice gold pair of pajamas. |
Bond: Sean Connery
The Villain: Auric Goldfinger (played by
Gert Fröbe)
My favorite Bond movie, and one of the best plans any villain ever had (in my humble opinion). Goldfinger is trying to break into Fort Knox. Now, normally this would just be any idiot's plan to get rich, "We'll break into Fort Knox and steal the gold!"
But that's not Auric's plan, oh no. See Auric already has a bunch of gold. His plan is to actually break into Fort Knox and set off an atomic bomb, irradiating the area (and all the gold) so that it would be untouchable for hundreds of years.
This would have the brilliant side effect of making the gold Auric already has
exponentially increase in value. When Bond figures out what the plan is even he's impressed, and he's already James Bond.
Of course the only flaw in his plan is that he has a hot chick working for him (named Pussy Galore, of course) and she falls in love with Bond (of course) and ruins the whole thing.
Chicks, am I right?
