Tags: blog, film, comedy, 2025, essential
Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday November 29th, 2025
The trying is the point
First of all, let's get this out the way: it's a Spinal Tap movie. The jokes are amazing. Wallace & Gromit no longer have the best cheese related jokes.
But the biggest joy of the movie is in watching three old guys heal their friendship.
When we meet them at the start of this new film, they've been separated for a long time. Each has poured their energy into new obsessions. Nigel sells cheese and/or guitars, David writes muzak and Derek runs a glue museum. All of them are a little reluctant to get back together, fearing their past divisions are insurmountable.
But as soon as they start making music together, they begin to find some common ground, as well as some new arguments. An early cameo by Paul McCartney should be revoltingly cringe but the way they tentatively jam together is so earnest and collaborative that it becomes beautiful. They're not good, that's not the point. Four old guys, fumbling around, trying to find a musical relationship together doesn't make great art. But it's the trying that's the point.
A later cameo by Elton John is equally wonderful as by now, with a lot of practice and a full band behind them, they're much more together, much more in sync. A lesser film would have shown this progress as a montage but Spinal Tap II shows the arguments and pettiness and effort needed to improve. They're still not good, after all they're still Spinal Tap, but it's the trying that's the point.
The thing we learn through the film is that they can’t express their friendship or resolve their differences in words. Conversations that attempt to address the situation are clumsy and a failure. Nigel tries to write a song about it, the earnestness of it contrasting hilariously with it’s awfulness. Obviously, the moment they do try to resolve things with words, in true Spinal Tap fashion, it's howlingly funny.
But in playing together they find something that none of them can get elsewhere. The shared goal, the shared effort, the sharing in and of itself.
Not only is this a great sequel, but it adds a new dimension to the original. What we're left with is a pair of films about male friendship. About a bunch of mates who gradually come to realise that, whilst they can't explain why or how, they all need that friendship in their life and need to put the effort in to try to make it work.
