Top 5 film gadgets that we want to take to the cinema

#5 – Iron Man suit MK VI (Iron Man 2)

We’ve chosen the Mk VI (that’s the one with the triangular omni-beam emitter, those of you with less time on your hands than us) because, unlike the many other incarnations of Tony Stark’s titanium tuxedo, it’s rocking those nifty wrist-mounted lasers. If your screening is plagued by small-bladdered cinemagoers who keep hopping up to go to the bathroom (picking up another Fanta on their way back and continuing the whole cursed cycle, no doubt), simply wait for them all to get up at once and, with an elegant twirl, bisect the bastards. The only hitch here is that you’ll have to get up to do it, so you’d better hope nobody else has had the same idea.

 

#4 – Dagger shoe (From Russia with Love)

KlebbA relatively low-tech addition to this list, Rosa Klebb’s dagger shoe would nevertheless be amazingly useful if, like us, you always seem to find yourself sat behind the loudest, most obnoxious kid in the theatre. No need to tap them on the shoulder or mutter passive-aggressively to yourself – simply deliver one sharp kick to the back of their seat, and by the time the credits roll your antagonist will be bleeding out. And don’t worry about getting caught; if there’s one thing we learnt from the completely awful second episode of this season of Sherlock, it’s that literally nobody notices getting stabbed in the abdomen if you do it with a sufficiently skinny knife.

 

#3 – Point of view gun (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Invented for the 2005 film by the late, great Douglas Adams, the Point of View gun – which, as you might imagine, forcibly brings its target round to the user’s point of view – has been used for purposes as lofty as religious conversion as as trivial as the settling of marital disputes. But its natural home is clearly the cinema, hunting ground of the Intransigent Usher and associated nuisances. Sick of being ‘politely reminded’ that you’re not supposed to put your feet on the seat in front, or that you really shouldn’t bring a bottle of gin into a PIXAR matinĂ©e screening, or that you appear to have mortally wounded the customer in front of you with your dagger shoe? Simply unholster the POV gun and watch the face hanging beneath that branded baseball cap melt into glorious agreement.

 

#2 – Batcowl (The Dark Knight)

BatmanWe’d quite like to go to the pictures in the Batsuit just on principle (assuming there wasn’t an ear in their field of vision, there’s no way anyone would notice), but the one Bat-tool that would most benefit the crafty cinemagoer is Bruce Wayne’s HORRENDOUSLY unethical mobile phone scanner from The Dark Knight. Struggling to identify the source of those incessant keytones, or just not in the mood to look round and find out who the hell sends a Snapchat during a film? The Batcowl’s holographic 3D scanner will give you a perfect view of the cinema from the perspective of the phone-wielding oik, allowing you to note their blind spots and plan a silent takedown.

 

#1 – Put-Outer (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)

Why must cinemas insist on leaving lights on during screenings? The only people who need them are those who plan on rummaging in their bags, leaving their seats or listlessly shovelling fistfuls of popcorn into their slack maws, and none of these monsters deserve to be in the cinema (or, preferably, on an oxygen-rich planet). A few clicks of Dumbledore’s stylish and understated Put-Outer – Deluminator if you’re some sort of pureblood posho – will plunge the auditorium into appropriately Chthonic gloom; and if a few marauding kids break their ankles on the steps down to the lobby, we shan’t lose too much sleep.

 

What would you like to take to the cinema? It’s a gun, isn’t it? We knew we couldn’t trust you.

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