Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 18, 2025)
Though 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap didn’t do much at the box office, it developed a strong cult audience. This resulted in occasional reunions via concert performances, new albums and video programs.
However, the 1984 movie waited 41 years to spawn an actual theatrical sequel. One finally arrived via 2025’s Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.
Rock band Spinal Tap enjoyed a popular renaissance after Marty DiBergi’s (Rob Reiner) documentary appeared in 1984. However, the band ruptured circa 2010 due to a conflict between leaders Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean).
The daughter of now-deceased former Tap manager Ian Faith, Hope Faith (Kerry Godliman) discovers their contrast requires the band to play one final concert. Along with bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), Tap deals with drama and pressures as they rehearse for one last show.
As noted at the start, This Is Spinal Tap didn’t move many tickets. However, with a $2 million budget, its $6 million gross meant it turned a profit, and it certainly earned back its costs in spades thanks to home video and other ancillary properties.
The impact of the 1984 movie doesn’t relate to money, though. This Is Spinal Tap didn’t invent the “mockumentary” genre but it gave it popular prominence and turned into a film beloved by millions.
The first film entered a marketplace of confused moviegoers, many of whom didn’t get that it was a satirical comedy. This meant the sequel came with a built-in audience and many other advantages its predecessor lacked.
But no one seemed to care. Continues cost $22 million and pulled in a little more than $3 million despite the tons of publicity – free and paid – it received.
No sane person could view Continues as anything other than a massive financial failure. However, if we don’t judge the 1984 movie based on ticket sales, the same should hold true for the sequel.
As such, I won’t criticize Continues because it bombed. Instead, I’ll slam it because it becomes a legitimately terrible movie.
Admittedly, This Is Spinal Tap set a high bar. 41 years after its initial release, it remains clever, smart and delightful.
I didn’t enter Continues with the belief it’d approach the pleasures of the original. If it offered a fraction of the prior film’s laughs and charm, I’d call it a win.
Instead, Continues feels pointless and boring. Not a single genuine laugh ever materializes across its 84 minutes.
The main actors no longer remember how to play their own roles, so they all blend into one. Granted, people change over time, but Nigel, David and Derek lack many of the basic characteristics that differentiated them 41 years ago.
This leaves our three leads as Generic Geriatric Rockers without personalities of their own. They rarely feel like the same guys we met in 1984.
It all feels completely uninspired, like everyone involved figured they should make a sequel because they had nothing else to do. No one bothered to come up with a clever story or anything fresh.
Like the 1984 film, Continues lacked a script. Instead, Reiner, Shearer, Guest and McKean came up with a story outline and all the actors improvised their lines.
Apparently Guest, McKean and Shearer lost these skills over time. They can't find anything interesting to say or do here.
We get token cameos from folks who appeared in the first movie, even when they make no sense. For instance, Artie Fufkin was just a random record label promoter who barely knew the band, but Continues makes it sound like he existed as a close part of their legacy.
The film shoehorns in these encores just for cheap audience recognition value. None of them seem organic.
Not that the movie’s “plot” makes much sense anyway. Again, everything about Continues seems illogical and lazy.
I could swallow the absence of coherence if Continues manages some laughs. However, maybe three half-hearted chuckles arise at best.
The whole movie just makes me feel sad in ways none of the other continuations of Tap ever did. If it'd been on the level of the early 1990s Break Like the Wind era, I wouldn't have cared for Continues but I wouldn't have felt as unhappy with it as I was.
And I do enjoy some post-1980s Tap. The original DVD's circa 2000 "in-character" commentary is a hoot, and a 2009 reunion where Guest, McKean and Shearer chat together as Tap for about an hour becomes very funny as well.
So I don’t feel that This Is Spinal Tap offers the only valuable Tap. While it remains the property’s peak, Guest, McKean and Shearer managed to milk plenty of laughs from their roles in subsequent years.
Here Guest, Shearer and McKean all look like they wanted to be anywhere but on camera as Tap for Continues. I occasionally wondered if someone off-screen held up an iPad with a livestream that showed family members with guns to their heads to force these actors to perform.
They simply can’t find a hint of inspiration or creativity in this theatrical sequel. Continues becomes a terrible and depressing conclusion to the Tap legacy.
Footnote: the film progresses through the end credits.
