Spinal Tap II: The End Continues 2025
The original This Is Spinal Tap mockumentary was very popular with my group of friends in college, so we could quote all the lines and even listened to the soundtrack way more than necessary. I bought the DVD and then blu-ray of the movie and that was great, but the extras were always dicey, with some new bits that just didn't work that well. Then I saw that 40 years later, a new movie was coming out! I watched the trailer and thought, man, those guys look really awful. That was probably good because when they appear in the new movie, I wasn't shocked, just ready to watch and enjoy the movie, and they stopped looking quite so terrible. This is not as sharp a movie as the original. With nostalgic looks back like this year's Led Zeppelin documentary and the Beatle's restored footage from The Beatles: Get Back coming out a few years ago, it seems like there should be a lot of fresh material to make fun. Instead, there is a lot of nostalgia for Spinal Tap here, including most of the old songs (plus some new ones, to me anyway), a couple of big name appearances (more than cameos), plus a couple of interviews of the past cast by themselves (would have been nice for a little interaction). Some of the new characters aren't great, but a couple of them are, like a new drummer played by a youngish woman who can really play. There are some good jokes and situations, but I don't feel like it is being as satirical as it is just mining Spinal Tap. So it turns out to be nice to catch up with this group again, revisit some songs and jokes from the original, and then build on it. It was much better than the DVD extras from the anniversary printing. I wanted more, a lot more, but will have to be reasonably happy with what I got. For people who haven't seen the original, don't start with this movie. If you didn't like the first movie, there will be nothing for you here.
Written: 13 Sep 2025