STAGED NOSTALGIA FOR 'SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES'

Year: 2025 Rating: **

Rob Reiner's completely unanticipated sequel to THIS IS SPINAL TAP wants to play it both ways: on the one hand, the fictional Heavy Metal group hasn't played together for years, their music is forgotten, and they have insanely mundane/downright bizarre jobs, like making cheese or creating background themes to cellular on-hold services...

But at the same time, while the old boys are reunited in a homey New Orleans studio, anticipating one big reunion show, they're visited by and jam with the likes of Paul McCartney and Elton John (who both consider them "legendary") with a sold-out crowd singing along to their lyrics, even somehow understanding the ironical nuances of their stage show (like the size of Stonehenge)...

Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest in SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES

Meanwhile, Rob Reiner's narrating-filmmaker Martin DiBergi isn't the aloof documentarian returning to his previous subjects, all acting out in a series of disconnected vignettes like from an attempted mainstream comedy... where Reiner awkwardly tries being more witty than the title characters...

Then there are entirely unnecessary copy/pasted fan-service bits bringing back memorable characters from the original... from Paul Schaffer to Fran Drescher to June Chadwick...

Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest in SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES

But they never connect to the new characters attempting to replace Chadwick's scheming Yoko Ono type, who desperately battled then-band-manager (now deceased) Tony Hendra as Ian Faith...

Here Faith's daughter has inherited that one final show the band's forced to participate in (yet there's neither urgency or chemistry in their initial reuniting), and she's up against obnoxious promoter Chris Addison, all primed as the token obnoxious antagonist: who never has time to capably (or humorously) antagonize anyone...

Harry Shearer in THIS IS SPINAL TAP

Meanwhile, the original consisted of perfectly selected moments, culled from hours of improvised footage that turned into what became a sort of accidental classic, particularly popular during the video boom...

Which had spurned Michael McKean as moody lead-vocalist/guitarist David St. Hubbins, Christopher Guest as affably spaced-out lead-guitarist Nigel Tufnel, and Harry Shearer as cool barometer bassist Derek Smalls to put out several studio albums and genuine world tours in the interim (meanwhile Guest, who had continued the mockumentary tradition, would have been a far more logical choice to direct)...

Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues with Paul McCartney

But SPINAL TAP 2 isn't really about that band or that band's quirky members, or the real life Americans-portraying-British musicians who deliberately underplay their genuine musical abilities (not an easy task)... and are the fans within this movie (including McCartney) fans of the group itself, or DiBergi's "hatchet job" documentary about them?

Overall, THE END CONTINUES is a benign and utterly forgettable parody-of-a-parody that hardly even belongs on a bonus section of yet another remastered edition of 1984's THIS IS SPINAL TAP, the character-driven cult-classic that had an actual beginning, middle and end.

Original Airplane inspired Twisted Guitar poster for THIS IS SPINAL TAP

"People love murder." Chillingly ironic line from SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES