{"id":135262,"date":"2025-09-11T03:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T03:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135262\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T03:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T03:37:10","slug":"spinal-tap-ii-doesnt-dial-itself-up-to-11-but-it-doesnt-have-to-either","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135262\/","title":{"rendered":"Spinal Tap II doesn\u2019t dial itself up to 11, but it doesn\u2019t have to, either"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues <\/p>\n

Directed by Rob Reiner <\/p>\n

Written by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Rob Reiner <\/p>\n

Starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer<\/p>\n

Classification PG; 83 minutes <\/p>\n

Opens in theatres Sept. 12<\/p>\n

Every so often, fiction escapes itself. It resembles everything else on the real-life assembly line \u2013 the looks, the feel, the energy. It\u2019s doing more than telling a story; it performs a truth so exacting you could believe what you\u2019re laughing at actually exists.<\/p>\n

Rob Reiner\u2019s 1984 comedy This Is Spinal Tap was exactly that: so carefully ridiculous that a generation in the \u201980s believed a band could actually be this stupidly incompetent. It practically invented the language of parody \u2013 one so many others copied, none quite with its bite.<\/p>\n

The sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, has to carry the weight of that revelation. We\u2019ve already seen the fictional band perform live, tour and even chart on the Billboard 200, fumbling their way through the hilariously messy world of rock. Now the film has to rekindle the friction, camaraderie and absurd humanity that once made the cast feel less like actors performing and more like a real band lurching toward immortality, one sensitive gripe at a time.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s a surprise to discover that, despite the bar scraping the ceiling, the sequel mostly succeeds \u2013 if you can live with the now-aged, obvious meta tone. The joke\u2019s edges have dulled, but the humour still hits.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A scene from Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.Kyle Kaplan\/Sony Pictures<\/p>\n

To that end, Reiner mockuments a reunion concert that feels equally ridiculous: David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) as elderly rock stars. What Reiner did in the first film, he does again here: He hovers, listens too closely, treats nonsense with total seriousness. That straight face lifts their bickering into something almost symphonic.<\/p>\n

And while the bodies move slower and the jokes land with a little more drag, once the trio start to sing \u2013 particularly in rehearsals and, later, that reunion concert \u2013 the voices are untouched. The harmonies still glide. For a moment, you could almost believe time hadn\u2019t passed.<\/p>\n

Of course, the illusion of youth is just that. The set-up may look like a classic get-together, but it plays out more like a marriage counselling session \u2013 the kind of union no one envies but everyone knows; the bickering, half-finished complaints, and sulking when one doesn\u2019t get what they want. <\/p>\n

David stews over a particular slight from the original tour, claiming that Nigel \u2013 drifting between annoyance and aloofness \u2013 knows what he did. Derek stays deadpan in the middle. All of them are older now, their passions rerouted into hold-music jingles, cheese-and-guitar shops and glue museums, but the same obsessions, delusions and comic insistence on their own importance remain here. <\/p>\n

The modern music industry doesn\u2019t escape ridicule either. Simon (Chris Addison), a tightly wound concert promoter who can\u2019t process a note, takes the reins with an algorithm-obsessed hand, while Fran Drescher returns as the band\u2019s original publicist. Cameos from Elton John, Questlove and Paul McCartney provide a knowing wink \u2013 each a lesson in a legend\u2019s patience for the band.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a kind of procedural nostalgia at work here. It\u2019s not as newborn ridiculous, and certainly not as innovative, but the film knows the game it\u2019s playing \u2013 or, in Tap\u2019s case, the music it has to keep hammering out. It doesn\u2019t hit eleven, but it doesn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n

Special to The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spinal Tap II: The End Continues Directed by Rob Reiner Written by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337,2922],"class_list":["post-135262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-noastack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}