Now I know what you're thinking, "Why dust off this old review blog after so long?" It's been three years since the last time I posted anything, and even then, I hadn't posted with any regularity since 2014.
But I do swing by here every so often to reminisce, and fix typos I hadn't noticed while I'm at it. After a while, I started thinking maybe I should come back here once in a while and have a little chat about movies. Not all the time, but every so often.
And if I'm going to do something resembling a comeback, I might as well do it by talking about a recent movie featuring another comeback: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.
Much like how I never really thought I'd come back to this blog, I also never would've expected a sequel to This Is Spinal Tap, especially since it's been so long since it was released. I absolutely adore the original movie, and while I fully anticipated its sequel being nowhere near as good as the first one, I still held out hope that it would at least be able to recapture at least a little bit of the original's magic. But while there are moments that are a good bit of fun, Spinal Tap II feels less like a full-fledged sequel and more like an 83-minute epilogue that should've only ran half that time.
Four decades have passed since filmmaker Marty DeBergi (Rob Reiner) followed the heavy metal band Spinal Tap as they toured the United States to promote their then-recent album Smell the Glove. The subsequent documentary proved very popular, bringing Spinal Tap success they'd never seen before. But after a while, they went their separate ways and haven't spoken to one another in fifteen years. But the fates have aligned to bring Spinal Tap back together one last time.
We learn as the movie begins that the daughter of the band's now-deceased former manager has inherited a contract as part of her father's estate that requires one more concert from them. The contract was thought worthless at first, but then interest in Spinal Tap's music spiked after a video of country music legends Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood covering one of the band's old hits went viral online. And thus, Marty is tasked with following the misadventures of lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) as they come out of retirement for one last show in New Orleans.
If you didn't catch it from the introduction, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is not what I hoped it would be. The charm of the original movie just plain isn't there this time around. While the main threesome continue to blend well together, as they've recorded two albums and done live performances as their characters since the release of the first movie (some of which is actually depicted in Spinal Tap II itself), much of the energy we saw in 1984 doesn't seem to be there.
For example, the bit about Spinal Tap's residence in New Orleans also being a prime spot for a ghost hunting tour honestly isn't that funny. The scene where the band auditions drummers feels like it went on for longer than it probably should've, when the whole thing is just a callback to the first movie's joke about the band's numerous ill-fated drummers. A number of musicians have cameos that just seem superfluous, and a scene about Spinal Tap creating their own version of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has a punchline that feels like right out of Zoolander.
There are also parts that I wish that had been elaborated upon. The concert's promoter admits early in the movie that he literally knows nothing about music despite promoting concerts being his job, and one scene near the end makes makes him feel like he could've been a potential antagonist. But he's a non-factor for practically the whole movie. I also thought the way Spinal Tap's lives had gone in different directions and why they hadn't spoken in fifteen years could've added a little more to the movie, Michael and Nigel butt heads briefly during the third act, and that's it as far as that goes. C'mon, fellas, just give me a little something.
I so dearly wanted to like Spinal Tap II. I'd been looking forward to seeing it as soon as it was first announced. But now that I have, I feel underwhelmed. It does not in any way tarnish the first movie, but the sequel is largely disappointing. There's an argument to be made that it probably didn't even need to be made at all. At one point during the movie, Michael McKean's character describes the band's impromptu jam session with Paul McCartney as “a thrill I wish I could enjoy more.” I can say the same about Spinal Tap II.
Final Rating: **
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