JK Rowling brought us Quidditch and the word ‘hiccough’, but is has she single-handedly made wearing glasses cool again? The answer no, no she hasn’t. They were cool long before Potter and his mates hit our screens…
Our first intellectual is the lead character in To Kill a Mockingbird. Mr Finch (who also made it into our list of Top 10 Movie Characters With Bird’s Names) takes on some racialist hill-billies in the American Deep South.
Coming from a troubled background, the crime-fighting mutant was one of the first to join Charles Xavier’s vigilante mob. Unfortunately the red-eyed one was killed by his own girlfriend in the third outing.
Eddie Murphy wasn’t the first person to to portray Professor Sherman Klump on the big screen, Jerry Lewis put in a fantastic turn as the Jekyll & Hyde character in 1963.
The cockney spy, played by Michael Caine, was adapted to the big screen in the 1960s as a roughly-hewn, working-class alternative to James Bond. However, the laconic secret agent’s most iconic feature was not his dry humour, but his black-rimmed glasses, which are still one of the lasting images of the 1960s.
The first superhero to come up with the laundry-saving idea of wearing his pants outside his trousers, Superman’s alter ago Clark Kent worked as a bumbling, bespectacled journalist by day and – with the aid of a telephone booth – guarded the residents of Metropolis.
Keanu Reeves’s wooden portrayal notwithstanding, Neo inspired a generation of movie-goers and fashionistas to believe that leather jackets and shades are perpetually cool. Set in a world where computers have taken over the planet and imprisoned humanity, Neo (a rather simple anagram of ‘One’) discovers his powers to transcend the computer world and bring freedom to the world.
Mike Myers’s most loved creation, the spoof ‘60s spy – part James Bond, part Frank Spencer – came on to our screens in the late ‘90s with an array of infectious catchphrases and a bevy of beauties hankering after him. That, with the aid of some groovy glasses, has made Powers one of the most memorable heroes of his generation. Specadelic, baby!
The llama-loving lead star of the eponymous movie is a figure close to every outcast teenager’s heart. The famous scene where the bespectacled bully-magnet dances to Jamiroquai’s ‘Canned Heat’ caused a million pulled muscles and twisted pelvises in bedrooms around the world.
The most popular fictional character in recent history, the young orphan, who is off on his penultimate outing this winter, first appeared in our cinemas in 2001. Armed with devastating broomstick skills and a trusty wand, the scruffy-haired magician will end up spending the best part of eight movies fighting his nemesis, the evil and noseless Lord Voldemort.
Arguably the greatest geek ever. The sweet, screechy Fogel can justifiably be labelled a hero, not least on account of his alter ego’s name, McLovin. Provided with the task of procuring fake ID for buying alcohol, Fogel chooses the immortal name ‘McLovin’ and spends the night joy-riding with maverick police officers. Break yo’self, fool!
