SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES - Mark Reviews Movies

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, Bleecker Street

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 12, 2025

Everything goes fairly fine for Spinal Tap in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. That raises a question: Is this really Spinal Tap, the vainglorious, incompetent heavy metal band that depends on excess and gimmicks and a complete lack of self-awareness to keep going in their constantly failing career? One would wonder if anyone associated with this belated sequel even saw the first film, if not for the fact that the people who made this also made that comedy classic.

The idea of a sequel 40 years after the original seems filled with potential, too. This Is Spinal Tap followed the fictional, washed-up metal band as they fumbled their way through what was left of a tour across the United States. If they were desperate then, just imagine how hard-up they must be now, having seen the music that made them semi-famous undergo its own various shifts and the music landscape change in so many ways across four decades.

Some will hopefully recall that, at the end of the first film, the band was getting second billing to a puppet show and only lucked into a bit more time because one of their juvenile songs became a hit in Japan. This movie, once again directed by Rob Reiner, bypasses any sort of reason that the band does, would, or even should reunite for another show at a sold-out stadium in New Orleans. In the faux-documentary world of the story, the first fake documentary made Spinal Tap even more famous, which is a questionable notion unto itself, but even then, the members haven't spoken to each other in 15 years when their new manager sets up the reunion gig apparently.

Such questions of logic shouldn't matter, because we should be laughing at lead guitarists David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), along with bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) as they try to get past decades of bad blood in order to rehearse for and put on a show that no one seems to believe could happen. Watching them play the old tunes and occasionally bicker about something or other feels like the band is just going through the motions, and where's the joke in that?

Generally, where are the jokes here? With the first film, Reiner, Guest, McKean, and Shearer gave us one of the funniest films ever made, and with 40 years of experience and thought and ideas running through their separate and collective heads, they somehow haven't come up with anything nearly as funny as any of even the throwaway jokes in the original. It would be sad to watch, if not for the fact that the cast does seem to be having a good time resting on their previously earned laurels.

That feeling of laziness isn't helped by the fact that most of the movie amounts to the three musicians sitting around while giving Reiner's Marti DiBergi (who has a larger role and isn't especially helpful) interviews, playing those songs, and watching as a ghost tour comes into the house where they're staying. The characters sit, as the cast improvises scenes that go nowhere (It's shocking how many of those interviews just end without a setup, a punch line, or even some semblance of two people having a conversation) and some cameos come into the studio or phone in an appearance.

For example, Paul McCartney and Elton John, who also makes an on-stage appearance during the show, turn up to be fans of the band, which, again, seems to go against the basic concept and very spirit of the central joke of these characters. One somewhat clever bit has the band searching for a drummer, and because every one of their previous percussionists has died under strange circumstances, a bunch of established ones just go around in a circle recommending each other. It's the idea of a joke, but at least the search results in the presence of talented firecracker Valerie Franco as Didi Crockett, who wants to be the one drummer who survives a stint with Spinal Tap.

Where's the accidental chaos? Where's the unaware buffoonery? Where's any sense that the people who made the first film have any memory of why it was so riotously funny in its small moments and its setpiece gags? We can feel the actors reaching for jokes out of the sliver of a conceit or nothing at all. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues doesn't come across as if it knows why it exists, except to try to reclaim some older glory. Its failure might make for a real behind-the-scenes documentary that looks more like the tragedy that Spinal Tap is supposed to be.

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