15 Unrealistically Cool Movie Geeks

Indiana Jones

Geek Clique: He's a bow tie-wearing professor who gets visibly uncomfortable when girly students flutter their eyelashes at him.

And, even in his spare time, he's still on the job, spending his vacations rooting around for old artefacts.

Why He's Too Cool For School: He's no museum piece. Without exception, those holidays are legendary adventures

And, of course, he's handsomeness personified. Wasn't the pretty student lusting after him enough of a giveaway?

Randall

Geek Clique: He works in a video shop and spends his days theorising about the Star Wars trilogy. When he's not watching hermaphrodite porn, that is.

Why He's Too Cool For School: His sheer attitude. Randall doesn't give a fuck about anything, which might be a constant source of irritation to fellow Clerk Dante, but an inspiration to the rest of us geeks.

Check out every other Kevin Smith film: Randall's influence pervades the lot.

Thomas A. Anderson

Geek Clique: By day, he's an office drone tapping away on a keyboard for an anonymous corporation.

By night, he's a hacker with a silly name (Neo), tapping away on a keyboard out of a vague sense of anti-establishment ennui.

Why He's Too Cool For School: The small matter of being The One, the physics-defying demi-god of the virtual world.

What most geeks wish themselves to be, he is. See also: Kevin Flynn in Tron .

Major Boothroyd (aka Q)

Geek Clique: Locked in the lab, the boffin of blowy-uppy things remained the model of the upper-class English geek for four decades.

Why He's Too Cool For School: There's one hell of a sense of humour implicit in those inventions. A machine gun hidden in a mannequin of a sleeping Mexican? Ay caramba!

But that attitude is matched by Q's willingness to put James Bond in his place. Yes, this geek can out-cool 007.

Will Hunting

Geek Clique: Although he's a janitor at MIT, secret genius Will likes nothing better than to sneak into classes after hours and correct the mistakes of the students...and the teachers.

Why He's Too Cool For School: In this case, he's literally too cool for school, preferring to hang out with his bros, drink beer and try and pull the college totty.

Better still, his blend of encyclopediac knowledge and street-sense can batter smug smartarses into intellectual submission. How d'ya like them apples?

Peter Parker

Geek Clique: He lives with his Aunt and Uncle, spends his spare time in dark rooms developing photographs. No wonder real life is a challenge, particularly when laydeez are involved.

Why He's Too Cool For School: After conveniently getting nipped by a radioactive spider, he's also got superhuman agility and web-spinning skills.

We'd have happily lived through those awkward teenage moments if we got to beat up criminals in our spare time.

David Lightman

Geek Clique: Most geeks are easy to avoid, given their preference for staying indoors and mucking about on computers.

Not David, a hacker so bored he'll spend his days pestering the entire neighbourhood just to get details of forthcoming computer games.

Why He's Too Cool For School: As played by cheeky chappie Matthew Broderick, he has enough insouciant charm to get away with his indiscretions.

Which is saying something, when David can bring the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust with a few clicks of the keyboard.

Doc Brown

Geek Clique: The mad scientist of Hill Valley, people tend to give Emmet Brown a wide berth for his wild wild gesticulations and wild exclamations. Oh, and the hair - yup, that's wild, too.

Why He's Too Cool For School: True, he gets residual cool for hanging out with Marty McFly, but Brown has enough of his own, thanks.

There are few guys around with the balls to turn a sports car into a time machine and rip off Libyan terrorists to get it working.

Spock

Geek Clique: Logical to the point of pedantry, Vulcan Spock's half-human heritage gives him a mix of alien weirdness and all-too-familiar techy obsession.

Why He's Too Cool For School: Where Kirk's macho thrusting at the galaxy's green-skinned lovelies quickly gets icky, it's Spock's sardonic intonation and raised eyebrows that keep the temperature chilled.

That said, with Zachary Quinto's sexed-up, action-man performance Spock nowadays is even cooler.

David Huxley

Geek Clique: Bringing Up Baby 's bespectacled paleontologist can't organise his own wedding, but he's only an intercostal clavicle away from completing his museum's Brontosaurus skeleton.

Why He's Too Cool For School: Given a little push by carefree force of nature Susan Vance, David is soon hunting leopards and cross-dressing in the hunt for his bone.

The fact he looks like Cary Grant doesn't hurt, either.

Tony Stark

Geek Clique: He's an inventor, who likes nothing better than to muck around with real-life Robot Wars . However, his weapons cause mass destruction. Not cool , dude.

Why He's Too Cool For School: Real-life inventors look and sound like Bill Gates. The Stark contrast is one of playboy panache and rock-star flair.

Plus, eventually, he sees the error of his ways and gets a Bono-like sense of saving the world. He probably campaigns against WMDs on Twitter.

Kate Libby

Geek Clique: Just to prove that the boys don't have a monopoly on geekhood, here's a sister who prefers to spend her days on the PC breaking into people's private accounts.

However, those hacking skills don't extend to her haircut, which looks like she did it herself.

Why She's Too Cool For School: Short answer - she's Angelina Jolie.

Anybody else would look stupid calling themselves 'Acid Burn.' With Jolie, the name smoulders.

Chris Wright

Geek Clique: The shining star of Pacific Tech's elite weapons development unit, Chris knows more about laser technology than is socially acceptable for a man who looks like Val Kilmer.

Why He's Too Cool For School: Like many an undergraduate, Chris is the worm that turned, giving in to the temptations of university.

Here's the geek as mellow dude and - as proved by cult 80s flick Real Genius - his casual karma rubs off on his fellow students.

Richard Wang

Geek Clique: This schoolboy inventor was always going to get bullied with a name like that, so it's no surprise he gave himself a nickname.

However, only a geek would believe that calling himself 'Data' would be any protection against wedgies.

Why He's Too Cool For School: He's a truly proactive geek, who has applied his knowledge into a way of life.

A one-man mecha army with a gadget for every eventuality, he's as indispensable as a Swiss Army knife.

Scott Pilgrim

Geek Clique: Perpetually tongue-tied, embarrassed Michael Cera is Hollywood's go-to geek. Here, he's slacker Scott, who just likes hanging out and half-heartedly bashing away on his bass

Why He's Too Cool For School: Some geeks have greatness thrust upon them.

In the forthcoming Scott Pilgrim Vs The World , the love of a good woman sends Scott on a quest to battle her seven Evil Exes...with punch-ups and lightsaber duels. Sounds pretty cool to us.