The custom guitar amplifier in This Is Spinal Tap famously went all the way up to 11. Before watching the long-awaited sequel, you should probably dial down your expectations to the other end of the scale. Which is to say that while the majestic 1984 mockumentary about a fictional heavy metal band is widely held to be one of the greatest comedies ever made, the follow-up – more a worthwhile set of low-key reunion sketches than a proper film – doesn’t come close.
We join the band’s now-estranged founding members – guitarists Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and David St Hubbins (Michael McKean), and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) – as they discover they are contractually obliged to play one last gig. Returning director Rob Reiner once again plays the documentarian Marty DiBergi: he unearths the trio, camera in tow (Nigel is the proprietor of a cheese and guitar shop in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is a lovely joke), before following them to a New Orleans rehearsal room, where they irritably noodle around on songs old and new.
Paul McCartney pays a visit, gamely accompanying them on Cups and Cakes, a track not entirely dissimilar to some of his own tweer works. Elton John bowls in for a rendition of (Listen to the) Flower People; later, at the closing gig, he performs robust lead vocals on Stonehenge. Some supporting faces of old make snippety cameos (Paul Shaffer’s Artie Fufkin, Fran Drescher’s Bobbi Flekman, June Chadwick’s dreaded Jeanine). Chris Addison and Kerry Godliman are lightly amusing new additions to the band’s entourage as, respectively, a Simon Cowell-esque svengali and the daughter of the band’s old manager, Ian Faith, portrayed in the original by the late Tony Hendra.
During some of the film’s flatter early stretches, viewers may start to wonder if a certain notorious two-word review of the band’s album Shark Sandwich might also be applicable here. But then Guest, McKean and Shearer begin pulling great lines from the ether – not unlike McCartney’s own magicking of Get Back out of thin air in Peter Jackson’s recent Beatles documentary – and you realise the spark hasn’t entirely left them.
The climactic concert itself is inspired, and followed by a rush of great odds and ends that play beneath the closing credits: a DVD extras-style epilogue to a film which already feels like a glorified collection of them. What a relief, then, that this isn’t terrible – though to get the best out of it, you may wish to convince yourself that it’s going to be.
In cinemas from Friday September 12
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