Spinal Tap II: The End Continues – 2025 – 83 Minutes – Rated R
3/5 ★
By mostly treading familiar ground and depending on cameos to carry it, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues falls short of greatness. It’s a fun time, with decent jokes and plenty of nostalgia, but it never comes close to the comedic heights of its predecessor.
There’s a certain irony about Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, a nagging feeling of art imitating life. Director Rob Reiner has returned to one of the earliest hits in his legendary career. He’s dredged up a story and characters that have long since passed from pop culture relevance for one final performance. In order to prop up the aging leads and keep public interest, he’s packed the entire affair with cameos and guest stars, hoping that can carry the production through. It's a good idea, but it never quite gets there.
In the actual movie, mockumentary filmmakers follow the former heavy rock band Spinal Tap as they reunite to put on one final performance. The group hasn’t performed together in years and are currently without a drummer (thanks to their drummers constantly dying), but they press on and try to revive the magic they once had. Not helping is a sleazy manager constantly undermining what made them great in the first place. Still, the band does their best to make the best comeback concert they possibly can.
The three stars (Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer) are all quite good once again in their roles. While there’s no question that Reiner is a hilarious filmmaker, it was his lead trio that made This is Spinal Tap as beloved as it was. They haven’t lost a step.
The premise, unfortunately, has lost something. Unless you simply love the first movie, it is admittedly hard to imagine that you’ll care much about the events of this one. Reiner does his best, and the jokes land mostly alright, but it all feels tame until the last 20 minutes. There’s not really a moment or a joke before then that you’ll remember once you leave the theater.
Even the cameos seem uninspired. Paul McCartney, Elton John, and all the rest are pretty fun to see in something like this, but none of them are exactly making you laugh out loud. There’s nothing wrong with the cameos, I’m just not sure if they make the movie any better.
There are certainly people that are going to enjoy Spinal Tap II, namely people who enjoy This is Spinal Tap. That’s fine, there’s actually something kind of nice about a movie made specifically for its fans and not really anybody else. If you aren’t already a fan, though, this one isn’t going to wow you. It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t exactly go to 11.
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