Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues Review: A Dismal Farewell to Rock's Loudest Band

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Rob Reiner's 1984 feature This is Spinal Tap is not only a fantastic example of the "mockumentary," which has gone on to inspire the likes of movies like Popster: Never Stop Never Stopping and the entire cinematic output of Christopher Guest. It's also one of the funniest comedies and a solid exploration of the changes in the hard rock music scene in the mid-1980s. All of which is to say that when it ends, and Spinal Tap gets a second wind to tour Japan at the finale, that's really all we needed to hear.

Instead, forty years later, we're seeing Spinal Tap return for Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues, a film as clunky and muddy as its title. Where This is Spinal Tap was a comedy masquerading as a documentary film, and doing both extremely well, Spinal Tap 2 is a thinly drawn concert film pretending to be a sequel and doing neither good enough to be compelling. It's a shame because there's clearly still a lot of vivacity and camaraderie between the bandmembers and director Rob Reiner, and there were plenty of avenues to take a story about aging rockstars, trapped in the 1980s, trying to make a go into today's music landscape.

It's been forty years since the rock band Spinal Tap was documented in their first feature. Since that time they played every major rock venue you could think of. But for reasons unclear they haven't spoken to each other in fifteen years and have gone on their separate ways. When they're forced into a contractually obligated final concert in New Orleans, members David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls (Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer, respectively) must put aside their differences to make magic happen one last time.

What happens when one tells a story about a rock band that chased trends becoming successful in their own right? The existence of the first film meant that Spinal Tap, in essence, became a real band with the sequel utilizing sequences from the band real-life performances at Live Earth, the Glastonbury Festival, and performing at the Royal Albert Hall. You could say the band had made it and were no longer struggling. But for as much as Spinal Tap 2 wants to remind you of moments you love from the original film, like the Stonehenge performance (now with a bigger monument), there are fundamental elements that it hopes you forget to make the narrative plausible. The fact that the band is reuniting because they owe one contract gig from their past with former manager Ian Faith (the late Tony Hendra) that Ian's daughter Hope (Kerry Godliman) sounds ridiculous for a band that no doubt has lawyers.

But the goal is to say that, after all this time, the band is still struggling. They've lost money thanks to Derek's crypt scheme, but still appear successful. Nigel runs a cheese shop, that also might sell guitars, alongside his girlfriend Moira (Nina Conti). David is doing soundscapes for true crime podcasts which...kinda sounds like a nice gig if you can get it. And Derek is running The Museum of Glue. Each hasn't been in contact with the other for fifteen years for "reasons unknown" that ends up being utterly ridiculous for those who have watched the original film. Even worse, the "resolution" of that grand conflict is brought up at the end credits to zero consequence.

Really, though, the script (what little probably exists considering how much improv takes place) feels like a first draft, with absolutely zero in the way of meat or stakes. The movie barely clocks in at 90 minutes and at least 20 minutes consists of either the camera following characters off-stage where they do nothing or just letting the band perform full rehearsal songs with the likes of Paul McCartney and Elton John. There are a few one-liners that come together, but much of the movie is the band talking over each other--the sound mix in here is outright bad, particularly in the concert sequences--or just trying to recreate bits from the first movie such as Nigel's love of different sound effects. The band attempting to get a drummer, a cursed position, is the only time a previous moment still has humor.

Guest, McKean and Shearer all know these characters like the back of their hand, and it is great when they are together and given opportunities to tell a genuine story. Their attempts to talk about the concert only to be interrupted by a ghost-hunting tour that runs through their living room is great. These actors have played this band so much that they are the band itself. Yet, the movie seems to think that nothing about the world of music has changed at all in forty years. Hell, not even the band members have changed in forty years, still wearing the same hairstyles as the first feature. They don't have anything to say about the current state of rock – which feels all but nonexistent these days – or the musicians around them, probably they're surrounded by band members as old as they are.

If anything, there's a fairly sad movie to be found here that the script doesn't even want to think about. Nigel has a girlfriend, a tweak from the first film, but that's the only type of personal relationship found in this movie. In the first, we didn't need to know if these guys had wives or kids because they were young and sending up the sex, drugs and rock and roll life. But as the three joke about dying – they're forced to take an album picture in a cemetery – there's no discussion of how, outside of Moira, none of the men have had a lasting relationship. There's no children to be found. What do they have to show for it? It's the moment that most feels like these characters are nothing more but costumes for them to take off and on when they need to.

The final concert is where the movie ends. And by ends, it's such an abrupt moment it doesn't play like a goodbye but more like they ran out of film or budget to do anything else. It's a shame.

Spinal Tap 2 is a movie meant for the choir, a closed garden that will only work for diehard Tap fans and do little to invigorate newcomers to it. Thankfully the first film is still out there to delight audiences. The trio of performers still have a lot of spark, but they're forced to pull this movie, like a big Stonehenge, over the finish line.

Grade: D+

Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues hits theaters Friday.

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