Leonard Part 6 (1987)

There are a few things that will never be shaken from the conscious of people who lived in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan slowly losing his mind, the rise of hair metal, the sudden influx of all things barbarian, and Bill Cosby. Yes, Cosby was a massive presence then. He was one commercials for pudding pops, he had a hit television show, and he still cranked out movies. What wasn't talked about so much was the fact that he got up to some bad shit in his off-time. Personally speaking, I think the sound-proof room he had built should've been a big red flag. But, in a way, he raped us all with his terrible movies. Sure, he did some good ones, but the shitty ones smell so bad that it's difficult to focus on those others. Among those movies that live in infamy is a film that makes no sense straight from the title.

Seriously, where the fuck are parts 1 through 5? Cosby, you bastard!

Now, I could go on here and talk about the "allegations" about Cosby that are about as difficult to believe as Paris Hilton making a sex tape was, but I'm going to try and not take advantage. Instead, we're going to focus on the fact that he's kind of a jerk who has made a career out of pretending he's the warmest family man in Hollywood. You don't have to really dig very deep to find things to dislike about him and the recent stuff isn't anything new, but is rather just more kindling on the pyre that he's built over the years. The fact that he's now burning in that is his own fault too, so you'll not see me giving any pity for the man. I'm saving my pity for myself, because by doing this film I am opening the floodgates for you people to request some of his other films.

I know what your dark little hearts desire.

But let's not ignore this film, which has gotten quite the reputation all on its own without having to dig anything up on the star. Upon its release it was met with overwhelmingly negative criticism, resulting in it winning three Golden Raspberry Awards. Even Cosby himself recommended people not spend money on it. That's pretty funny, considering he produced this. He'd probably you rather spend that money on pudding pops and roofies, like himself. It's too late though, Bill. I already bought this movie in a $3 bin at Big Lots. Perhaps I should contact him about getting my money back? Ehhh, I'm not sure he's taking calls anymore. I'm not sure why he wouldn't be taking them though, as it's not like he's guilty of anything, right?

"You feel like I'm undressing you with my eyes? That's crazy! Now here, drink this Coke I opened for you in the other room."

Now, according to our film, there actually is a reason why we have Part 6 in a series and don't have the previous films in that same series. The other films were locked away so as to safeguard the world. Yeah, I'm not buying it, because that just makes a person wonder why this one was allowed to get released then? What, it's not dangerous enough? Because clearly the star of the film thought it was awful, so perhaps it needs to go into that vault too. From here on out, I am firmly blaming everything terrible in this film on the CIA for not protecting the world from it. But, let's get to the plot. How does this movie's opening go?

Bill Cosby is ballet dancing and riding a fucking ostrich. This movie is really going to hurt.

Yes, the movie opens up on a montage of what I can only assume are scenes from the supposed other films in this series, with the titular hero driving a tank car, doing ballet in his silver uniform, and riding on an ostrich while literally being fired upon. From there, his butler explains everything that I just explained regarding the missing adventures. He then tells how it all began, which is when the actual movie begins. We see some divers, some people at a pool, and a mysterious guy who tells the divers to release a barking rainbow trout into said pool, where it eats the guy there with his lady. At the CIA headquarters, they discuss the problem that is having agents being eaten by fish, and the head of the CIA recxommends they get the one man who can handle these bad guys. Who is that? Why it's restaurateur and former CIA operative Leonard Parker, of course. He's simply the best.

What's he the best at? Product placement.

After foiling an attempt on his life by another CIA operative, he drags the corpse into HQ and the boss man gives him the lowdown on why they need him. There is a vegetarian ecologist who is killing off their best men. I just said that exact combination of words, yes. She has the ability to control the minds of animals and plans to use them to attack various people. Leonard tells them that he's not interested in saving the world, both because he's a selfish dick and because he's more worried about getting his wife back who seems to have left him over his spy lifestyle. At home, Leonard is greeted by his butler and a massive load of luggage, which means his daughter dropped in. She's a young actress and has had a falling out with mommy over the fact that she's banging the director of the play she's in.

I really hope she didn't have to swallow anything to get in this movie, because that would be depressing.

The director is an Italian guy named Giorgio and he looks like he could be Leonard's dad, which is probably why he immediately stops smiling upon seeing the man before him. I should point out that the actor playing Giorgio is one Moses Gunn, who is notable for looking like he's 80 years old ever since he hit puberty. I know I feel his pain, as I looked older than I actually was too. For me this resulted in my being the defacto buyer of alcohol and cigarettes for my friends, but for Moses it meant he was going to be the old guy in nearly everything he was cast in. The truth is that he's likely only even in this stinker because he was on The Cosby Show, a fact I'm sure he regretted after seeing this film.

"My career wandered the desert for 40 years after this!"

Leonard expresses his own disapproval at Giorgio staying there, but ol' Moses says he wouldn't want to impose. It's at this point that everyone is quite aware of why the mom is really unhappy with the daughter. From here, the two gentlemen exchange about whether there is cradle-robbing or grave-robbing going on, we get another Coke product placement, and Giorgio gets shown the door before we start to actually feel sorry for our main character. He dresses down his daughter over being indecisive about her career, as she seems to jumping from one career to another, and then over dating a guy who is just a guest star on his show! I mean, the gall! Why date him when you could date the star?

He'll show you his pudding pop technique.

But enough about the young actress' bad life choices, let's try and get through this movie in a timely fashion. We see the tuna factory from the montage where a bunch of buff-bois are doing the henchman thing, as this is meant to be a pun on the classic "hot girls working for a villain" thing, being that the villain is a woman. It's good to know that even female villains can be sexist. Medusa, the villainess of our story, saunters in looking like she's about to break out into a rendition of Chaka Khan's Through the Fire, and the trenchcoat guy who ordered a man be eaten by a barking fish is at her side along with some guy named Andy in a wheelchair. They do villain things. Like sending frogs to murder another CIA agent.

Someone is getting ahead of themselves. I haven't even gotten to that film yet.

The frogs quite literally push the CIA agent's car into the water and, rather than getting out of his car, he just accepts his fate because it means that he's no longer in this movie. Back to Leonard, he has a phone conversation with his estranged wife, which results in her inviting him to dinner the next night. He's so happy about this that he promptly makes out with his butler, because Cosby and boundaries don't go together. We then get a montage of him prepping for the dinner date, which is actually more entertaining than the majority of the film thus far, which leads to both a joke about the TV aerobics instructor saying something about Leonard not being able to get it up and to Joe Don Baker guaranteeing that he won't being getting it up.

"Come on, Leonard! Save the world and I'll be your personal fluffer!"

But Leonard has no time for pleas to save the world, as he's out to get his wife back. At the dinner we see that he brought the exact same flowers that are seemingly everywhere in her place, which I suppose is meant to be funny? I can't really tell, as none of this film has made me crack a smile. The barking fish was the closest I got to almost smiling, but I was more confused about why there was a barking fish. During dinner, the wife keeps pouring food him on him. She says it's by accident, because that's also meant to be a funny joke but just falls flat, like most of the jokes. Once she finishes being about as passive aggressive as my ex-girlfriend, we find out that they seperated because Leonard was with a 19 year old. This movie seems hellbent on making us not like our hero. After some more food punishment, Leonard leaves and instructs his butler to take him back to the spy plot, as he's clearly not getting any tonight. He meets up with Nurse Carvalho, a fortune teller living in an old bus, and she speaks in what is meant to be the filmmakers joke as to what Albanians sound like. It's not funny and I'm fairly certain Albania as a whole deserves a formal apology for this bollocks.

Then again, we could all use some apologies for this.

he tells her he plans to be a spy again, she gropes his face, sticks her fingers in his nose, gives him some ballet slippers, and it's at this point that I realize the opening montage of scenes were actually events that are coming later in this film. That means there are explanations for the lunacy from before. I don't know if that's a relief or not though, as part of me hoped whatever movies those scenes happened in were much better. His boss, Joe Don Baker, gives him a fancy silver suit that makes the Power Rangers look gritty by comparison, and hops into the tank car. Let me explain: it's a car with a freaking tank barrel sticking out of it. How it doesn't tip over is beyond me, but there it is. He drives to the factory, he attempts to blow the doors off with badly animated cartoon shells, and Medusa sits inside laughing in an attempt to make the audience laugh. It doesn't work. Her wheelchair-bound beau screams for her to "kill him" and she goes about trying to do just that, but she obviously wants tot take her time so he can actually foil her plans.

"What a brilliant fricking idea!"

Leonard then uses all of his various weapons in an attempt to destroy the door, which doesn't work, so Medusa decides to help us with this by simply letting him in. Oy vey. He walks inside and there are animals inside, most notably being an anteater that decides to trot into frame. I hear the anteater sued the filmmakers over this, as the movie did irreparable damage to her career, leading her to start drinking and eventuality changing her name to Ann Coulter as she became a hardcore conservative. So many lives destroyed by this movie, such a shame. Medusa then sics her vegetarians on Leonard. They're men wearing animals suits and some wearing simply animal masks...and not much else.

I didn't ask for this. Someone asked for this, but it sure wasn't me.

Despite them having claws and purportedly being perfect physical specimens, all these guys really do is dance around and knock off Leonard's various gadgets...which he could easily just pick back up. Andy, being the most sensible gentleman in the film, shouts to kill him again, but no, we get no reprieve. Instead, Leonard puts on the now sparkly ballet slippers and starts attempting to dance. Since he can't though, an actual dancer replaces him for the remainder of the scene. The bird people attack again, but he beats them all with the power of ballet! Amazing...ly boring. Medusa agrees, so she starts shooting at him, which mostly misses him and ends up shooting someone else. He fights his way through her goons, a literal room of bees, and gets the sphere he came for. He brings it to Joe Don Baker and his butler tends his one minor wound that he barely seems to notice. Honestly though, Cosby seems like he barely notices most things here. He seems like he's filming this entire movie on autopilot, which is always a good thing when you're the lead.

That's truly the face of a man who is invested in this production.

Leonard then performs surgery on himself, because why not? Medusa tells trenchcoat man that the “offensive will begin on schedule” and, as if to prove her right, we then see Leonard's daughter's play. It's not especially offensive, but the fact that this movie isn't over yet is. Leonard sleeps through it...well, most of it. he manages to wake up in time for her nude scene. I cannot escape the incest black hole that is the movies I review, can I? It's just there in the sidelines, waiting for me, begging me to try and avoid it. I'm just sitting here having Full Eclipse flashbacks, because Victoria Rowell was in that movie. Also because I'd much rather be watching that movie. We then get a Lava soap product placement that may be the most blatant one yet in the film, as it is so odd to see a massive pile of soap backstage in a theater, but it does serve a purpose. It's there so trenchcoat guy can hide behind them! And also so Leonard can knock them over in another attempt at being funny. But the yucks cease when Leonard ends up returning backstage to discover the whole cast is bound and gagged while trenchcoat boy ran off with his wife. He has to bring the sphere to Medusa and her fetish parade or else they'll make this movie even longer!

PLEASE, NO!! LET IT END!!!

At the CIA, they are trying to figure out the device until Leonard says the magic word that makes the sphere work. How does he know it? Fuck if I know or care. He just does and it results in a bunch of cuddly bunnies turning into monsters straight from Night of the Lepus, ready to feast on the flesh of the innocent. He then steals the sphere, leaving the people he works with to die, as he goes to save the woman who loathes him. He and his butler open it, discovering liquid that resembles dishwashing liquid. The butler literally says that. I think they just gave away what the actual stuff used was here. So, they replace the liquid with Palmolive in a Safeway parking lot, adding to our overall product placement tally. Nurse Carvalho and her kids pop in to remind us to buy the Action Max, and she magically switches places with the butler. Whatever, let's just get this over with already. There's a car chase scene, Leonard gets to Medusa's place, some stupid things happen that really only exist to make me talk longer about a movie I am tired of talking about, and he saves the world and gets his wife back after she pours more food on his head.

There were people starving while this scene was being filmed.

Yes, I skipped stuff. You want to know what you missed? Stupid jokes. Lots of stupid jokes. They involved hot dogs, lobsters, vegetarians, and Alka Seltzer. They were painfully unfunny and a severe test of my patience, which is a perfect summary of this film as a whole. Despite his obvious horrible traits, Cosby has been capable of being entertaining in other things. This movie, at no point, showed any of that capability. Instead it showed off a long string of jokes lamer than the ones I write that were barely stitched together by a boring spy story and a whole shitload of product placements that makes me never want to buy the products on display.

Not that I can even shop at Safeway, as there aren't any here.

Leonard Part 6 was a terrible movie and it fully deserves its shitty reputation. I would say that it seems like they were trying, but it doesn't. No one really feels like they're trying here, least of all the lead actor. This movie isn't worth watching, buying, or even falling asleep to. Not even Victoria Rowell's tits made this movie good, which I guess is true of another movie she's in where she shows off her physique. But we'll get to that another day. I'm done talking about this shitty movie and I must prepare myself for the next one on my docket, which has nudity of a much more frightening variety in it. So, until the CIA does what is right and destroys all copies of this movie, I'll be here preparing myself for what is yet to come. Later days, bleeders.

"I'm out, bitches!"