The List: Top 5 Bond Girls

My good friend over at John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic Television has posted a list of the Top 5 Bond Girls, in his humble opinion. But seeing as this is Amuhrica, I decided to put my 300 cents in and steal his list and add my own.

Really, I ended up commenting so much at John's website I thought: why waste this gold material here in a comments section? Time to wow the masses with my Bond knowledge and incredible taste (or weird perversions) in Bond women.

Please go over and read John's list before reading mine (or after) and see his top picks. He is more a classic Bond type so his list is full of the va-va-voom girls of the '60s and '70s.

***

Now, Timothy Dalton is my favorite Bond so don't argue with me, because, in the end, you are all wrong. Dalton was THE literary Bond. Live with it. But because so many of you are wrong, you'll probably think my top 5 Bond girl choices are wrong too. Fools!

Honorable Mention

Maryam d'Abo as Kara Milovy in The Living Daylights

Maryam was supposed to be the next Diana Rigg, the woman that tamed James Bond and made him the 'one woman man'. Timothy Dalton often gets a bad wrap because they experimented with both his films and then got into terrible legal trouble in 1989 that pretty much ended Dalton's reign before it started. The Living Daylights was, with the exception of one of the best opening sequences of ANY Bond, the movie where Bond found love again. . .and with one woman.

Yes, Kara was a little meek and she was far more damsel in distress then femme fatale but she was also a beauty and someone I had a crush on for many years. Though I think her cousin Olivia d'Abo is a goddess, Maryam was one of the first women, at the tender age of 10, to enter into my heart.

#5

Jane Seymour as Solitaire in Live and Let Die

Live and Let Die is a godawful film and any snapshot of Jane Seymour on the Internet looks like a behind the scene photo of a Star Trek back lot shoot. But by god does she have great cleavage. What? Did you expect this list to be non-shallow and feminist? Look, I respect women beyond belief but part of Bond's appeal is the fact that we get to see exotic woman in revealing clothes doing ... anything really. If anything, Seymour makes watching Live and Let Die possible.

#4

Olga Kurylenko as Camille in Quantum of Solace

I can't remember what the hell Quantum of Solace was about and, half the time I couldn't tell you what I was even looking at. But while the filmmakers stretched the connections between this film and the masterpiece Casino Royale way too far, they continued to evolve the Bond girl in a good way.

There had really only been a handful of Bond girls who could hold their own and look amazing. And the great thing about Camille is that despite being played by supermodel Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace spends a lot of time roughing her up, making her dirty, and focusing on her kick ass skills. Plus, this might be one of the only films where a Bond girl gets a plot that is more interesting and perhaps in more focus then Bond's.

This may be a last entry, but it doesn't take away from how sexy AND how useful Camille is. I might have been shallow about Solitaire but, in the end, I love women who are strong because that, in itself, is beautiful. But being a supermodel helps too ... 

#3

Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock in For Your Eyes Only

Okay, a French chick who plays a Greek, can hold her own, is on a mission of revenge, and carries a crossbow? Well, cupid, shoot six straight into my heart with that crossbow! A forgotten goddess in the Bond world, Bouquet joins Kurylenko in being assertive and interesting first, sexy later. In what might be Roger Moore's only good outing (MAYBE The Spy Who Loved Me ... maybe Octopussy ...), For Your Eyes Only makes up for that annoying figure skating chick but having a true kick ass heroine.

#2

Carey Lowell as Pam Bouvier in License to Kill

Maybe you're seeing a trend here. I don't mind my Bond girls leggy and busty but I also like them brainy. I also like to idea of a girl kicking my ass. Pam Bouvier joins pretty much the this entire list of women who can whip my ass in a fight and probably kill me because I'd be turned on during the entire thing.

Pam was another 'experiment' in the Dalton era. Though Dalton got his chance to shag bodacious babe Talisa Soto in License to Kill, he met his match in sexy Bouvier who had legs but also skills. She was kind of a female Bond but, unlike Halle Berry in Die Another Day, Lowell was believable. But she was also so sly and swift. You didn't expect Bouvier to be so badass even though the first time you meet her she's beating ass in a Florida bar.

And let me get back to being shallow again: damn, what legs.

#1

Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye

It ain't a Bond girl list without Xenia Onatop (Famke Janssen). She takes my #1 spot ... easy. As a 12 year old watching that movie, nothing made me feel stranger then watching Onatopp strangling men with her thighs, screaming Georgian-dialect curses, and doing whatever the hell she was doing in that Turkish bath with Pierce Brosnan.

Though she'll never be sexier then she was in Lord of Illusions, Famke was the scene stealer in Brosnan's first outing. And while the first question I'll always ask her if we are lucky enough to meet would be 'what is it like kissing Jonathan Frakes?' my second question will always be, 'what was your inspiration'? Because Xenia was from another god damn world: of pleasure AND pain. My heart still pumps, and my adolescence still grows, with thoughts of Xenia.