Review: Leonard Part 6

Credentials: N/A (Rottentomatoes.com & Metacritic.com!) / 2.1 out of 10 (Imdb.com) / #60, Imdb’s Worst 100 List / Nominated for 5 Razzies at the 1988 Golden Raspberry Awards, won 3---Worst Actor (Bill Cosby), Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay / Nominated for Worst Comedy of Our First 25 Years at the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards

Plot: The world’s greatest secret agent, Leonard Parker (Bill Cosby), is called out of retirement to stop an evil genius (Gloria Foster) from taking over the world. What’s her weapon of choice? Planet-destroying laser beam? Freeze ray? Atomic weaponry? Nope. Animals. She plans on using the planet’s cuddliest inhabitants as foot soldiers in her quest for total domination with the help of a mind-control toxin thing. Can Leonard save the world and billions of human lives from total destruction? More importantly though, will he be able to win back his estranged wife and keep his young daughter in line????

Why it Stinks: For an action-comedy, “Leonard, Part 6” is startlingly lite on both the action and the laughs.

                As the end credits rolled, I thought to myself: “Hmmm… If they just trimmed 40-45 minutes off the runtime, this would have made for a pretty OK kids movie.” Then, I glanced at the bottom of my computer screen and saw the movie was only 90 minutes long to begin with. After a quick break for a spit take clean up, the enormity of how bad “Leonard Part 6” is really hit me.

                The reason I thought it would make for a good kids movie is because the humor is extremely dumb. The thing is, it’s as dumb as almost anything Mike Myers or Adam Sandler have ever done AND it does it without most of the usual poop and pee jokes.

                Admittedly, there are some creepy moments when Bill Cosby finds out his young daughter is dating a guy older than he is. Still, the world’s gotten more progressive since this movie first came out. Ummm… March-December relationships aren’t all that weird, I guess.

                Anyway, the script by Jonathan Reynolds is too slow as it stands. It spends too much time worrying about Leonard’s deeply, deeply uninteresting personal life and not enough time on the whole, you know, world in peril thing.

                Even though the evil genius and her dastardly plot both suck, I’d still rather watch a frog stalk a guy than see Bill Cosby get in a one-sided food fight with his bitter ex-wife.

                And the jokes, they’re just weak. Lots of lame sight gags, silly accents and even a killer rabbit or two. It’s like a Monty Python movie, if the Monty Python crew all had their funny bones surgically removed. I don’t think I laughed once, either with or at “Leonard Part 6.” I was, however, extremely bored throughout.  
                So, how much of it was Bill Cosby's fault? Considering he starred in it, produced it and wrote the story the script was based on... I'm going with a lot. Though, in an odd twist, everyone's favorite Jell-O pitchman literally disowned the movie prior to its release. Sorry Bill, you can't undo what's already been did.      

Quick Hits

                ---Props for the henchman doing the whole “Why don’t we just kill” the super spy hero instead of holding him hostage stuff. Although, Myers and Seth Green handled the same material much better in “Austin Powers.”

                --- Features more Coca-Cola plugs than an entire season of "American Idol"

                ---If Rottentomatoes hasn’t reviewed your movie, it essentially doesn’t exist. There are usually gaps in Metacritic, but Rottentomatoes usually reserves space even for the worst movies.

                ---Runners up for worst scene: Bill Cosby riding an ostrich, a fish that sniffs and barks like a bloodhound and the kitchen shootout sequence  

Worst of the Worst: The worst scene in “Leonard Part 6” is the ballet-themed fight scene against henchmen wearing bird masks. I didn’t understand it while I was watching, and looking back on it now I still don’t get it.   

                

Video Evidence

Kitchen shoot out... blah.

The worst of the worst scene in umm... action

Bill Cosby leads the fight against vegetables

                Bumblebee tuna.