The godfathers of fake metal have returned for one last show as Spinal Tap II: The End Continues picks up more than four decades after equally fake director Marty DiBergi mock-umented their first final tour. The real question around the long-talked-about sequel is why now? Why revisit one of the most iconic comedies 41 years later? The answer, as it turns out, is both part of the joke and a little disappointing.
If memory serves, I was in early high school when I saw This Is Spinal Tap for the first time. If you’ll forgive me for showing my age, this was in the mid ’90s, so the film was only 10 or 12 years old, the same age as Man of Steel or Mad Max: Fury Road are today as I write this. But it was already legendary, with a reputation that preceded it and had me honestly believing Tap was a real band right up to the moment I clicked play on my VCR. The movie felt like a crucial lesson in the history of film, and I don’t believe the legacy of the original can be overstated. There are literal decades worth of love letters to Spinal Tap on the critical side and in the mockumentary genre the film ushered in.
And with all that said, I have to ask again, why now? Of course the cynical answer is money or boredom or whatever, but the cast, including director Rob Reiner, is clearly having a good time with the English accents again. That’s actually one of the sequel’s biggest assets. There’s a nostalgia for the first movie on full display; it’s even embedded in the character arc of Michael McKean’s David St. Hubbins. The movie doesn’t dig too deeply into “the business has changed” when mining for jokes, which was a great decision. Instead, Reiner and McKean, along with bandmates Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest, lean on the reason all these decades-later “lega-sequels” exist in the first place: we loved these guys and we’ve always wanted to see more.
But the real bit of meta humor comes with the plot device that kicks the movie off. Spinal Tap is contractually obligated to do one more show. The daughter of the band’s former, cricket bat-wielding manager has inherited that responsibility and, thanks to a viral video of a megastar performing Big Bottom at a sound check, there’s actually some juice behind the reunion. The downside of that, however, is that the “we went viral” inciting incident is a joke that’s 20 years past its sell-by date. The side that’s even further down than that is that this joke is not alone in the film in how out of date it is (see also: a Blue Man Group joke that worked better on Arrested Development in 2004). But the fact that there’s an obligation to sneak one more Spinal Tap concert has no small relationship to the fact that there’s even another Spinal Tap movie at all. Add to that the pedigree of the comedians involved here and you have to give them credit for making that part of the joke.
Farts, of course, are inherently funny.
And make no mistake, these guys are still funny. Oddly enough, there are plenty of jokes that, on paper at least, might qualify as low-grade, punny dad-jokes. One, for example, is part of what Derek Smalls has been up to in his solo projects. It’s a simple and goofy bit of word play that, in lesser hands, would get a groan before a laugh. Another is a short bit about farts during one of their rehearsals that could have easily fallen flat. Farts, of course, are inherently funny, but that’s not the debate they have on screen, nor is it one I’m willing to entertain here in this review.
The other tricky thing with the film is, to borrow a wrestling term, the kayfabe of it all. When Sirs Paul McCartney and Elton John show up in reverence of the great rock band, or Questlove (among other notable drummers) hops on FaceTime to consider taking the cursed job of providing Spinal Tap’s percussion, it’s fun to a point. At minimum just a big-name cameo, but at times it’s almost a required effort, another obligation to fulfill. Either way, it’s not something that the original film had to deal with. To be fair though, Elton John doing Stonehenge is absolutely worth it.
At the end of the day though, the reasons we loved the first movie are still here 40 years later: Derek, Nigel and David. The film employs the original’s template well enough, following the trio as they navigate feuds and their own stupidity. They’re definitely not as stupid in this installment, as nobody gets lost backstage, nor are there meltdowns over how sandwich meats don’t fit right on the bread. There was a tragedy at play in the original that The End Continues is also missing. These poor dopes and their waning popularity were on a final tour that’s falling apart at every stop. Here there’s just one show that is for sure going to happen and a few minor arguments breaking out while they rehearse in a very nice studio space. This Is Spinal Tap, of course, is not remembered for its gripping character drama, but nonetheless my character was gripped by drama, and I’d wager most of our characters were, which is why a sequel is still worth doing 41 years later.
I would also like to point out that I got all the way through this review without referencing “Shit Sandwich.” Mostly because I don’t think this movie is a Shit Sandwich, or that God should have rested on the day he created Spinal Tap II: The End Continues too, but I also feel like that would’ve been too easy. It’s important to note that I did think about it, though.