Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls all have the exact same haircuts in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues as they did in This Is Spinal Tap, the pioneering mockumentary that introduced their fictional heavy-metal band to the world in 1984. This is unfortunately the best joke the sequel has to offer, and it’s always present, like the foundational rhythms provided by any one of Spinal Tap’s long stream of ill-fated drummers. Nigel, played by Christopher Guest, has stayed true to his signature layered mullet through a transition from lead guitarist to cheesemonger in the quaint village of Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Lead singer David (Michael McKean) may no longer be a golden-maned paragon in the style of Robert Plant, but he has maintained his shoulder-length locks while working as a composer of hold music and an occasional mariachi performer. And bassist Derek (Harry Shearer), now running a South London glue museum, still has his magnificent horseshoe mustache despite its having gone from dark brunet to snowy white.
This Is Spinal Tap is a comedy about how the desire to be seen as a rock god collides with the humiliations of actually being human, and the visual of a group of guys in their 70s and 80s unable to move on from the styles of their youthful heyday is as effective a continuing riff on this theme as any. It’s also the only one fully realized by the new film, which gets the band back together literally and metaphorically — Rob Reiner returns too, as director and onscreen documentarian Marty DiBergi — seemingly without any plan for what to do next. The most generous thing that can be said about Spinal Tap II is that it doesn’t feel like it was meant to be a movie but instead something slighter and less burdened by expectations, like a DVD extra or televised reunion special that gives everyone a chance to revisit beloved characters they don’t entirely recall while fumbling through a few rounds of “Remember When.” On the big screen, what becomes notable is how much of the sequel’s 84-minute runtime is given away to two major but not especially funny celebrity cameos I’ll leave unspoiled here.
There’s no good reason for Spinal Tap II to feel as out of practice in its comedy as its characters are after 15 years of not talking to one another. Guest, McKean, and Shearer toured the U.S. as Spinal Tap in 2009 before playing Wembley Stadium and then Glastonbury, footage of which is included in the movie, but they also reunited as recently as 2019 for a panel and performance at the Tribeca Film Festival. Despite all that, the trio come across as curiously uncertain of themselves and where to take their comedy in the sequel. The premise is that the band agrees to reunite at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans because Hope Faith (Kerry Godliman), the daughter of their late manager, Ian (played by Tony Hendra, who died in 2021), has inherited a contract requiring one last show from the band. (Like its recent fellow long-in-coming comedy sequel Happy Gilmore 2, Spinal Tap II is about mortality, more by nature than by choice.) With the help of a soul-dead promoter (Chris Addison) and little apparent reluctance, they gather at a house in the French Quarter to rehearse for two weeks and, of course, audition a new drummer, eventually settling on Didi Crockett (Valerie Franco), who professes her willingness to die in the pursuit of rock and roll.
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There are shatteringly quick scenes with Fran Drescher, reprising her role as publicist Bobbi Flekman, and June Chadwick as David’s now-ex Jeanine, as well as too-long ones with Questlove, Chad Smith, and Lars Ulrich as themselves. The reliance on famous faces (Garth Brooks also makes an appearance) to prop up the importance of this fake band is exasperating, given the only reason most of us cared about the fake band in the first place was that This Is Spinal Tap did such an incredible job of presenting its members as ridiculous, indelible characters. The barely concealed (possibly romantic) jealousy Nigel felt about David’s relationship with Jeanine, and David’s blithe obliviousness about the tension caused by her attempts to manage the band, were at the core of the original film, as essential to its hilarity as “These go to 11” and the Stonehenge incident. Spinal Tap II reverses this dynamic, giving Nigel the doting partner (Nina Conti) and leaving David to chafe with resentment, but it’s a lot less clear what’s on either character’s mind.
Guest, at his best, inhabits his characters so entirely that he doesn’t appear to be at all aware that they’re funny, but this time around, his Nigel achieves that solidity only when talking about his immense pedalboard, which allows him access to effects everyone else finds unbearably annoying. Otherwise, neither he nor the other two main characters seem to know why they’re there, and Reiner doesn’t either. It’s no small task to craft a follow-up to one of the funnier comedies ever made, but it’s also not as if there aren’t plenty of relevant topics to latch on to — like, say, the preponderance of acts letting go of old grudges in order to go on nostalgia-bait reunion tours with exorbitant ticket prices. But Spinal Tap II doesn’t have the sharpness or self-awareness necessary to make fun of itself that way or to make fun of anything in particular, aside from those hairstyles. They may not be enough to sustain a movie but remain an incredible spectacle throughout.
