Rob Reiner<\/a> \u2014 who directed, starred and co-wrote the original with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer \u2014 has once again directed the sequel, faithfully playing his role as filmmaker Marty DiBergi, complete with military baseball cap and a director\u2019s viewfinder around his neck. All the guys get screenwriting credit.<\/p>\nWe learn where the trio has landed after all these years \u2014 one runs a cheese-and-guitar shop, another is the proprietor of a glue museum and a third writes soundtracks to podcasts and the hold music for phones.<\/p>\n
Mortality is a constant theme, from the concert promoter who suggests one or two of the three members die onstage for good publicity \u2014 \u201cWould you settle for a coma?\u201d one band member offers \u2014 to the Shearer song \u201cRockin\u2019 in the Urn\u201d to a photo shoot in a cemetery to the whole thing ending in a hospital. Bones creak when they settle into chairs; paunches are hard to hide and reading glasses are necessary. This is a movie that celebrates those whose \u201ccandles cost more than the cake.\u201d Yum, dig in.<\/p>\n
Death obviously stalks the search for a drummer, who has the habit of coming to an abrupt demise whenever they join. That was a kind of background joke in the original, but here the comedians lean in too much, with cameos from reluctant suitors, including Metallica\u2019s Lars Ulrich, Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2019 Chad Smith and Questlove \u2014 \u201cYou’re legendary, but I don’t want to die,\u201d he begs off \u2014 all landing flat. Just including famous people isn’t funny enough.<\/p>\n
Valerie Franco eventually steps behind the drum kit, bringing a vitality and effervescence to a movie that sorely lacks it. But you’ll cringe when Shearer’s Derek Smalls hits on her, a woman four decades his junior. Shearer also at one point gets a vial stuck up his nose, a desperate bit of physical comedy that shouldn’t have made the cut.<\/p>\n
Guest’s Tufnel tries cloyingly to recreate his \u201cup to 11\u201d from the original film when he and DiBergi discuss various guitar pedals \u2014 one \u201cis like someone singing through a duck\u201d \u2014 and he reveals a secret compartment of cheese in a guitar. It falls apart like brie on a warm day.<\/p>\n
The high point is when McCartney happens to stop by the recording studio. He praises the band for their ability to rhyme \u201cflesh tuxedo\u201d with \u201cpink torpedo\u201d on the song \u201cBig Bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are also appearances by Elton John, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. Fran Drescher and Paul Shaffer reprise their old roles in blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments. Henry Diltz, one of rock’s great photographers, also gets a cameo.<\/p>\n
John, whose natural comedy instincts are sadly untapped here, sits in with the band twice, for \u201c(Listen to the) Flower People\u201d and \u201cStonehenge.\u201d The movie often stalls in the second half as it loads up on performances leading up to the final concert.<\/p>\n
One of the bits that doesn’t work is that the band’s apartment in New Orleans is constantly interrupted by a walking tour of haunted spots. But that’s fitting, perhaps: \u201cSpinal Tap II\u201d is filled with ghosts. It’s like watching a cover band playing the hits but then realizing it’s actually the original band onstage after all.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpinal Tap II: The End Continues,\u201d a Bleecker Street release in theaters Friday, is rated R for \u201clanguage including some sexual references.\u201d Running time: 83 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an early scene from \u201cSpinal Tap II: The End Continues,\u201d the blisteringly obtuse Nigel Tufnel asks his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[13929,17261,156,13930,409,111,139,13931,69,466,13927,17260],"class_list":{"0":"post-15026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-christopher-guest","9":"tag-concert-promoter","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-harry-shearer","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nigel-tufnel","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-paul-mccartney","18":"tag-spinal-tap","19":"tag-this-is-spinal-tap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}