Spinal Tap II: The End Continues review – Such beloved characters deserve a better film

Not bad for a micro-budget, liberally improvised mockumentary about a fictional English group (played by Americans) coming apart at the seams on a make-or-break US tour, a film that both lampooned the often already preposterous heavy metal community, and dished up a heartwarming bromance.

Our heroes are Tapping into America again in an all-new yarn, although references to the first film are many (brief cameos by supporting characters, mentions of erstwhile deceased drummers) and only go a little way to compensate for the worrying dearth of fresh Grade A gags.

The “II” of the title is a little misleading, however, as although this is the band’s second big screen outing there has been plenty of other Tap activity in the 41 years since their cinema debut.

In tandem with a reunion album called Break Like the Wind, the 1992 straight-to-video release The Return of Spinal Tap chronicled the group’s sold-out concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the songs interspersed with comic vignettes.

They got together again in 2009 for a two-month US tour, followed by another London show and an appearance at that year’s Glastonbury Festival, and Harry Shearer’s laconic bassist Derek Smalls resurfaced in 2018 with a solo album, Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing).

Ageing is key in the new film; if we take the timeline literally the musicians are now in their eighties (“when the candles cost more than the cake”), and are reconvening for a last hurrah, having not spoken to each other for 15 years.

Badgering them into a one-off comeback show is Kerry Godliman as Hope Faith, the daughter of their earlier, now deceased manager Ian Faith, who sees the gig as an opportunity for everyone involved to find closure.

She’s helped/hindered by Chris Addison as a manipulative concert promoter called Simon - a thinly-disguised hybrid of genuine music biz executive Simons Cowell and Fuller, who declares “my superpower is that I don’t give a s**t about music” and lectures the group about where they stand in “a post K-pop world”.

The players are all in place, a premise of sorts is mapped out, yet the results on screen are disappointingly pedestrian; there’s a lack of flow to proceedings, a couple of set-ups denied a good punchline, and only intermittent callbacks to what else the band have been doing – more about Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and his English country village cheese shop would have been welcome.

A huge part of the charm of This Is Spinal Tap was down to when the actors weren’t working from a script, bombarding viewers with great gags and throwaway lines cooked up in improvised scenes.

There’s some of that in The End Continues, notably when Michael McKean’s front man David St Hubbins is being interviewed by Rob Reiner’s returning director Marty DiBergi, but nowhere near enough (arguably the film’s most laugh-out-loud joke doesn’t arrive until the closing credits).

In a nod to the group’s status as a “legacy act” they cross paths with infinitely more enduring veterans Paul McCartney and Elton John, in what looks suspiciously like a publicity gambit on the part of the filmmakers, and sees real life awkwardly encroaching on the otherwise entirely fictional Tap universe.

Superstars they might be, but neither Macca nor Captain Fantastic are blessed with strong acting chops, their appearances serving only to derail the credibility of the original, completely fabricated conceit.

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Thanks to the groundwork laid down several decades ago, St Hubbins, Tufnel and Smalls are robustly formed, widely adored comic creations whose very names have become shorthand for the more hapless, hamstrung elements of rock ‘n’ roll; we can’t help but be invested in them.

Consequently, rather than enriching or adding to the Tap pantheon, the movie is best approached as an exercise in nostalgia that relies on an audience with a ready-made, unwavering affection for the band.

There’s still a good time to be had, but such beloved characters deserve a better film than this – and seeing as the actors wrote it they’ve only themselves to blame.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is in UK cinemas from Friday 12th September 2025.

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