Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, 2025.
Directed by Rob Reiner.
Starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, and Valerie Franco.
SYNOPSIS:
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues makes its home video debut in an edition that’s, unfortunately, bereft of any bonus features. I also thought the movie missed some obvious opportunities for jokes, although on the whole, I enjoyed it and thought it was a worthy successor to 1984’s The is Spinal Tap.
Have you ever watched a movie and found yourself saying, “Wait, they missed some opportunities here!” as the credits rolled? Such was my experience with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which on one hand is a very funny successor to 1984’s This is Spinal Tap but on the other hand seems to pretend that the music industry hasn’t changed dramatically since then.
The conceit of this one is that director Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) has decided after 40 years to check in with the band Spinal Tap on the occasion of their reunion and farewell concert. (First missed opportunity: References to bands like The Who that have staged multiple farewell tours.)
During the decades since the first film, lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) has moved on to open a cheese and guitar shop, where customers can barter one for the other, and play in a local folk band (yes, he plays electric guitar with them). Lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) now composes music for true-crime podcasts and on-hold music for customer service systems, willing a “Holdy” for the latter.
Bass player Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) runs his New Museum of Glue in London and has composed the symphony Hell Toupee (get it?) that he plays with a philharmonic orchestra. Meanwhile, the band is managed by Ian Faith’s daughter, Hope (Kerry Godliman), and Caucasian Jeff (C.J. Vanston) is the new keyboard player. Elton John and Paul McCartney also show up to play with the band; the former joins them for the concert, with, unsurprisingly, disastrous results.
The role of drummer is, of course, unoccupied, leading to an amusing sequence where the band tries to recruit Questlove, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith to no avail. Their open audition is likewise a disaster until Didi Crockett (Valerie Franco) shows up and blows everyone away. Marty questions her about any reservations she might have about the gig, given the fact that all of the band’s previous drummers have died in various ways, but she believes she can dodge that curse.
As Nigel and David squabble over the upcoming concert’s particulars and Derek tries to once again unsuccessfully play mediator, Marty also checks in with others from the first film: publicist Bobbi Flekman (Fran Drescher), who quit her job and became a Buddhist because the band stressed her out so much, and local PR guy Artie Fufkin (Paul Shaffer), who’s now a used-car salesman. Both are perfect “Where are they now?” bits for those characters.
Meanwhile, Chris Addison joins the cast to play promoter Simon Howler, who actually has very little interest in music and mostly tries to insert himself into the proceedings, such as when he and Hope decide to create their own Hall of Fame after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tells the band to fuck off. Their creation bears more than a passing resemblance to an IHOP restaurant and seems to be more focused on them than the band.
It’s all very funny stuff, and the cast is clearly in a nice little groove with each other again. I was surprised, though, that Spinal Tap II doesn’t lean into all the changes that have happened since 1984 in the music industry. No jokes about how the band members adjusted to the world of iPods and the concept of ripping music off CDs and now have to contend with a marketplace where streaming has fully supplanted album sales and concerts are the only real way most bands make money.
In the end, though, I did enjoy Spinal Tap II: The End Continues and certainly recommend it to anyone who loved the first movie. I just couldn’t help but feel like maybe Reiner and the cast could have turned the whole thing up to 11 by addressing some of those missed opportunities. (Haha, I know, I had to go for that joke; not doing so would have been a missed opportunity for me.)
Sadly, another missed opportunity is the lack of extras on this Blu-ray. Fans of the first film should be well aware of the jam-packed edition Criterion offers, which was recently released on 4K Ultra HD for the first time. It seems like there should have at least been some deleted scenes to include, and maybe the cast could have gotten together for an audio commentary — the Criterion track where Guest, McKean, and Shearer talk about the movie as their characters is very funny.
Maybe a future disc will include plenty of extras, although, given the movie’s rather dismal box office performance, that may require one of the boutique labels to acquire the rights and give it a shot. I’m sure there are many Gen Xers like me who would love to see that happen.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
