Last week, I posted on this blog that I had an epiphany of sorts when someone asked me about that Section 31 film. The epiphany was that I would much rather watch Leonard Part 6 – the much reviled box office bomb starring disgraced comedian Bill Cosby – than the Section 31 film. I had then teased that I would have something special for today… I didn’t say what, but smart readers who read that post and then read yesterday’s semi-monthly proclamation that I did not watch Alex Kurtzman’s Section 31 film starring Academy Award Winner Michelle Yeoh should have been able to put two and two together.
And when you did, you probably thought, “Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. You don’t want to watch the newest Star Trek thing on Paramount Plus because it looks like shit, BUT you have no problem spending money on a shitty comedy movie from the eighties starring one of the shittiest men in the world. HAR! HAR! GOOD ONE, PAL!”
You fuckers thought that I was joking. Hell, you figured that after a whole afternoon of radio silence, there was nothing to this whole deal and my little tease was an early April Fool’s joke.
Well…
Turns out the joke was on me…
I guess we should address the title of the film, because it’s going to address the obvious jokey questions. As it should be readily apparent, the title of the film – Leonard Part 6 – is a straight-up gag title, as there are no Leonard Parts 1 through 5 that preceded this one. It’s like the Naked Gun sequels where you have Naked Gun 2 1/2 and Naked Gun 33 1/3… except those are genuinely funny movies with genuinely funny actors written by genuinely talented writers.
Believe it or not, this is not a film that I was entirely oblivious to. There used to be an old website – I don’t recall what it was called – but they had a post on this film, complete with screenshots and what they showed wasn’t much. You had some screenshots of an animated opening sequence, some random shots of Cosby in workout gear and getting food dumped on his head. He was in a space suit of some kind. The screenshots alone didn’t sell me on the movie; it looked like something they tossed Cosby in and he was just along for the ride. Worst movie of all time? I’ve heard the claim plenty of times.
Still, something like that lingers in your head and some time later, during a random brain fart, I had the urge to look this movie up and found some surprising details. Apparently, Bill Cosby – who not only starred, but also had a hand in the writing and production of this thing – would do interviews urging people not to waste their money on this thing. When the movie had won three Golden Razzies for Worst Movie, Worst Actor, and Worst Screenplay, Cosby gladly accepted the awards. Rumor even persisted that he bought the TV rights to the film so that it would never air, except of course that it did. You can almost call this Cosby’s version of the Star Wars Holiday Special; something he did once upon a time and then instantly regret it… although unlike the Holiday Special, you can still buy a copy on DVD or Blu Ray…
Or do what I did and rent it off Amazon Prime… which is honestly the most I was going to do with this thing. I’ll take the receipt as proof that for forty-eight hours, I was able to watch this thing… for some baffling reason… to sate some strange curiosity over this thing that has lingered in my head for who knows how long?
And now that I’ve seen it… where do you want me to begin?
I suppose I should star with the man at the center of it all: William Henry Cosby Jr.
Like I’ve said, I’ve never been a big Cosby fan. I only knew of him through the stuff that people (up to a certain point) knew him for; Cosby Show, Jello pitchman, Fat Albert, that drawing show whose name I’m completely blanking out on. He mostly told funny quips and jokes. And even when I did get around to watching one of his comedy routines, he never came across as someone who did physical stuff. He was more jokes than slapstick. That’s the impression I always had of Bill Cosby as a comedian… you know, before all that baggage came to light.
So it seems odd to see that in a movie that he not only starred in, but also had a hand in its production and its writing of the story, a lot of it would be focused on slapstick comedy, which is something that Cosby was never known for. Here he is doing goofy exercise sequences, action sequences like dancing in a space suit, riding on an ostrich, and hell, the opening action bit where the President (played by Joe Don Baker) sends one of his men to bring in Cosby and they have a fight in the kitchen that’s supposed to be humorous, but comes across as flat and uninspired. There’s a bit where he has a 20-year-old daughter who wants to marry a 66-year-old and I’m like… “What?”
So the overall plot revolves around Leonard being pulled out of retirement to save the world from some woman who has mind-control powers over the animals, causing them to do her bidding or something. Leonard would rather manage his restaurant and try to win back his wife, who would rather dump food on his head. And this is supposed to be funny? Bill Cosby wrote this stuff and thought people would laugh at this sort of thing. There’s a bit where Cosby is baring his soul about missing his fictional wife, who left him because she caught him with a 19-year-old… and this is somehow supposed to be funny? (Also, given what has come out about Cosby in recent years, this has to have aged extremely poorly nowadays.)
There’s a bit where Cosby and his wife are trapped by lobsters and he scares them off with a bar of melted butter… and this is supposed to be funny? There’s a bit where Cosby is wearing this sci-fi suit of some kind that’s shooting rockets and shit, which results in explosions, but there’s a door that’s impervious to pain… and this is supposed to be funny? There are action bits that play out poorly. There are special effects that look like bargain-basement special effects. The cast is given nothing to work with and are mostly phoning it it, including the main star who, again, wrote and produced this fucking thing.
Also, Coke is a thing. And if you didn’t know, Cosby will not be afraid to let you know via helpful Coke product placement.
At less than ninety minutes, Leonard Part 6 isn’t a very long film… but it is perhaps the longest ninety minutes that I’ve ever experienced. A huge mass of nothing came to mind as I was watching this thing unfold. At no point did I laugh. At no point did I crack a smile. I wasn’t even grumpy or bored or angered by any of this. I just sat there, staring blankly at this random display of imagery, from the opening sequence of animated children’s drawings to… everything else. I felt no emotion. I felt nothing. There was not even the later contemplation of “Why did I watch this?” Instead, I’m just left wondering what this is supposed to be.
Leonard Part 6 is a truly baffling film. Made during the height of Cosby’s popularity and, given his fingerprints being all over this thing, it’s safe to consider this something of a vanity project. As much as we highlight Cosby urging people not to watch this thing after the fact, that did not stop him from actually making the film, having a hand in how the story was crafted, and how the film would be made. This was something that Cosby wanted to make and given his success at the time, people just let him do whatever the fuck he wanted… and this was the final product that he had unleashed upon the world. At what point did he then decide that maybe, just maybe, this whole Leonard thing wasn’t such a good idea?
So yes, I gave Leonard Part 6 a shot and it was dreadful. There were no laughs to be had, there was no enjoyment to be found, the story was nonsensical, the performances were phoned in, the special effects were dreadful, and at no point did I ever find anything that could be salvaged from this thing. And yet… I didn’t hate this film. I wouldn’t go so far to say that I liked it because I really didn’t… but at no point did this feel like a complete and utter waste of time or money. Like I said, there was a curiosity about this film that had lingered for decades and I eventually got around to sating that curiosity… and I didn’t really regret it. I didn’t enjoy Leonard Part 6, but I don’t regret giving it a shot. And now that I have, I never have to watch it again.
On the other hand… I also have no inclination in watching Section 31.
Oh, okay… I’ll end this on a somewhat positive note because I do have one nice thing to say about Leonard Part 6. True, it is a horribly unfunny movie that is a vanity project for a man who was on top of the world and turned out to be truly horrible in his own way. True, this could very well be one of the absolute worst movies that I’ve ever seen in all the years that I’ve been watching movies. True, Leonard Part 6 is an utterly dreadful movie that should never have been made.
But do you want to know the one good thing about Leonard Part 6?
It is not Ready To Rumble.
dtm666 