Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025)
Forty-one years after This Is Spinal Tap, one of the most influential mockumentaries ever made, we finally get a sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, and it was shot primarily in New Orleans.
The director of the rock documentary This
Is Spinal Tap, filmmaker Martin "Marty" DiBergi (Rob Reiner), goes on a
mission to track down and reunite the three core members of Spinal Tap, and, of
course, he finds them. Lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) runs a
cheese-and-guitar shop where you can trade guitars for wheels of cheese and
vice versa. David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), guitarist and lead vocals,
currently writes the music you hear when a company puts you on hold during a
phone call. Finally, bassist Derick Smalls (Harry Shearer) is the curator of a
glue museum, which houses glues from around the world.
They all agree to do a final concert
that will take place at the Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, but there is much
tension between David and Nigel, longtime friends who, for mysterious reasons,
haven't spoken in years. The film could have gone a little deeper concerning
the estrangement of the two characters and how resentment, real or imagined, is
just time wasted, but this is a comedy and it's mainly about the laughs.
There are lots musician cameos here
such as Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Questlove, Chad Smith, Lars Ulrich, Paul
McCartney, and Elton John, who was clearly having the most fun with his cameo.
A comedy like this is strictly hit or
miss jokes wise, and while it starts off kind of wobbly, Spinal Tap II
does hit its stride with many gags that land. One of the funniest moments is
what Nigel stores in a small compartment on the back of his guitar. This is one
of those great gags that makes you laugh twice—first when you see the actual
sight gag, then again because of the absurdity of it.
Spinal Tap II is breezy, fun
nostalgia.
