‘Spinal Tap II: The End Continues’ Review: Too Little, Too Late
Rob Reiner’s last good movie was over thirty years ago, with the incredible A Few Good Men. The rest of his oeuvre has taken quite the nosedive, and one may be inclined to think he never recovered from the blistering takedown of his disastrous North by Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert. This doesn’t mean he hasn’t had any success post-North, with The Bucket List being a major commercial hit, but the quality of his films has greatly diminished. One would think that, with the highly anticipated Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, Reiner would find the joy of making movies again and return to his status as one of Hollywood’s most revered artists. Yet, the sequel to 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap arrives 35 years or so too late and seems way past its prime, or relevancy, within popular culture.
Seeing the film in an empty IMAX cinema appears to add insult to injury, because that venue, no matter the quality or content of the movie, always has a few people inside. Fully empty has never happened—until today.
The good and the bad of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
That’s not saying that Spinal Tap II: The End Continues isn’t without its merits. But the sequel is a far cry from Reiner’s revolutionary mockumentary that still finds new audience members around the world, who bathe in the fictitious band’s hilarious music and quotable comedy. Spinal Tap II has moments of high-spirited humor, but they occur in spades, sandwiched between total mediocrity, as Reiner, playing once again documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi, reheats old leftovers from the original Spinal Tap and never attempts anything different.
What keeps the movie glued together is the rock-solid alchemy between core band members Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer). As old as they’ve gotten, a thing they repeat ad infinitum, the trio has not lost a touch in their respective turns, even if the material they wrote just isn’t as strong as it should be or doesn’t feel fresh enough to justify a sequel made in the 21st century.
The biggest drawback in Spinal Tap II is how the creators fail to recognize that they won’t be able to top the 1984 masterpiece, and they certainly won’t amass the same adulation if they do the same things.
Sadly, Reiner doesn’t seem ready to do something different or recognize that this sequel will be scrutinized alongside the original, and it would be a good thing not to embrace nostalgia as hard as most legacy sequels do.
Yet, since there’s no “legacy” to be had here, Reiner seems to find it perfectly acceptable to follow similar beats as the first movie essentially. He constantly points at scenes and references from the prior film, whether recalling to audiences several characters from the picture, such as Fran Drescher’s Bobbi Flekman or Paul Shaffer’s Artie Fufkin, or simply showing excerpts from the superior entry, almost as if he’s promoting his timeless classic instead of the movie he’s currently making.
Sequel film is a nostalgia-driven nothingburger
Spinal Tap II is essentially a vehicle for Reiner to tell audiences, “Remember how great This Is Spinal Tap is? How about you watch that instead of wasting your time here!” Of course, that may not be his intention, but it certainly feels like it, especially when he has prominent figures in popular music (Questlove, Lars Ulrich, Chad Smith, Paul McCartney, and Elton John) appear in the film to talk about how great Spinal Tap is and reminisce on their legendary status within popular culture. Only McCartney and Elton John have something of note to do, and only one of those is actively entertaining. They seemingly act as distractions from the fact that Rob Reiner’s movie doesn’t offer much beyond recollections of what made the first movie so great.
There are, as I’ve alluded to, some noteworthy set pieces, which all involve in some way the physical talents of its core cast. One bit involving glue elicited the biggest laugh of the entire thing, due to its profound stupidity. Another, which heavily relied on inflicting the most significant amount of pain on Elton John, reminded me of how he was utilized in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle. It’s all in good fun and worked wonders, but one hoped there would be much more of this and less reminiscence about the time that once was instead of what is.
There is a more profound commentary on aging stars attempting to recapture the magic of a long-lost time period. Unfortunately, Reiner’s film doesn’t delve deep enough for us to grasp the core stars’ thoughts about the finite time they have as they try to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle success of the original Spinal Tap. The effort is sincere, way more than most cynical legacyquels released in this day and age, but it still isn’t enough to make this sequel feel as dated as most of the jokes in the movie.
Rob Reiner seems like a good enough person, especially in his political involvement over the years, but he’s sadly lost his filmmaking magic that made him such a force in his heyday. There was hope that Spinal Tap II: The End Continues would see Reiner find his groove as a director again, and while it’s certainly the most watchable movie he’s done in a very long time, it still falls short. The only thing you’ll see in this picture is a director past his prime desperately clinging to one of the two films people still see—and quote—to this day. Here’s hoping no one, not even Reiner himself, touches his other timeless classic…
Also check out: The Naked Gun (2025): A Hilarious Return to Spoof Comedy Movies | Cosmic Circus Reviews
