Comedy is often described as ‘tragedy plus time’. But what if the formula works in reverse, too?
That’s one conclusion you can draw from this vain attempt to recapture the helium high of This Is Spinal Tap, one the funniest and cleverest comedy movies ever made. Forty years on, the laughs are in tragically short supply as Nigel Tufnell, Derek Smalls and Dave St Hubbins reunite for one last gig in another mockumentary that’s taken director Marty Di Bergi (okay, Rob Reiner) four decades to make and still feels half-baked.
There are jokes – well, joke-adjacent remarks – about death, drummers and lots of chat about cheese. We find Tufnell (Christopher Guest) in rock retirement, estranged from his band mates and running a small cheese and guitar shop in Berwick-on-Tweed. Bassist Smalls (Harry Shearer), meanwhile, has a glue museum in south London and writes terrible rock operas with names like ‘Hell Toupee’. Lead singer St Hubbins (Michael McKean) is lending his talents to Californian mariachi outfits and writing hold music for customer service phone lines (‘This one won a Holdie,’ he points out proudly).
So far, s’okay. The band’s cricket-bat-wielding manager Ian Faith is no more (actor Tony Hendra died in 2021), leaving the band’s contract with his enthusiastic daughter (Kerry Godliman). She sets to work reuniting the bickering old rockers for a reunion gig in New Orleans, with Chris Addison’s slimy svengali figure standing by to take advantage. From there, the bum notes come thick and fast.
It took four decades to make and still feels half-baked
Two things need saying as I prepare to compare this movie to the felling of the Sycamore Gap Tree in the annals of vandalised national treasures. Firstly, Guest, McKean and Shearer remain comedy geniuses more than capable of conjuring up the odd killer one-liner. There is some inspired silliness to enjoy (the Boss, we learn, has written a memoir called ‘I Am Springsteen, Going On Spreventeen’).
And, if anything, the legacy of This is Spinal Tap emerges unscathed, if not burnished by this misfire. The End Continues has guest stars like Paul McCartney, Elton John and Garth Brooks pitching up, presumably out of sheer love for the original. Because it definitely wasn’t the script.
But making the band actual rock legends who can pack out an arena, inspire Macca, and call up Questlove on Zoom unpicks the whole joke. Instead of loveable losers who can’t find their way on stage, they’re three creaky veterans making sleazy remarks to their new female drummer whose daft brand of heavy metal is suddenly worthy of awed appreciation.
The frequency with which Reiner’s cheery filmmaker DiBergi turns up to explain things or sell the bit, plus the wealth of callbacks (and flashbacks) to the first movie suggests that they might know it. Sadly, they were right to fret: this one is for the rock Hall of Shame.
In cinemas worldwide Fri Sep 12.