Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025)

I, alongside many others, was shocked to hear about the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner at the end of 2025. As a comedy fan, Rob Reiner is a bit of a legend. As a movie fan, his run of directorial credits from the mid-1980s through to the early 1990s is considered an almost-unrivalled hot streak. The fact that his film career both started and ended with Spinal Tap is at least a teeny tiny silver lining to the massive cloud that is his untimely death.

I have not really been aware of the overwhelming critical consensus on Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, but I really liked it. REALLY liked it. Like many sequels, it suffers from the fact that it just isn't the original film. But this had moments that made me laugh just as hard as I laughed at some moments in the first film.

Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) are aiming to re-unite Spinal Tap after a break of many years. There has been bitterness, there have been legal wranglings, and there have been a number of unexpected side ventures. The band are ready to rock though, but are there enough fans left eager to hear them?

Written by the leads and Reiner, and once again full of riffs and tangents that showcase the improvisational skills of the cast around the loose structure, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is pretty much exactly what Tap fans should want from a sequel. The reveals of what each character has been up to prove delightful, the reworking of classic gags is done well, and the newer additions (Kerry Godliman, Chris Addison, and Valerie Franco) fit in perfectly with the established team. I would also say that all of the celebrity cameos work in service of the comedy, as opposed to bringing things grinding to a halt to simply point and highlight the household name, but I know some others disagree on that point.

It seems redundant to praise Guest, McKean, and Shearer on their ability to portray such fully-realised comedy creations, considering they have been among the very best to do it for over four decades now, but there's certainly some extra magic sprinkled over them whenever they are showing us the highs and lows of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. And if you don't chuckle as Guest explains his bizarre store that trades in cheese and guitars then I feel sorry for you.

I was really tempted to fill this review with all of my favourite quotes and moments, but I have instead tried to show some restraint. That's why it's so brief. The best comedies make you want to simply repeat the best bits to other people, and this feels like one of the best comedies I have watched in some time. More importantly, it feels like a worthy sequel to one of the all-time greats, it feels like a fitting finale for Spinal Tap, and it feels like Reiner inadvertently bookended his directorial career with two giant monuments to comedy. Like two large upright stones, if you will, that cast large shadows over the landscape.

8/10

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Pure Luck (1991)

I have been in the mood lately to watch some undemanding '80s comedies, mainly movies that I remember seeing advertised, but didn't actually get around to watching. And I could have sworn that Pure Luck was a 1980s comedy, but it was actually released in 1991. The concept certainly feels like a very 1980s one.

A young woman (Valerie, played by Sheila Kelley) goes missing while on holiday. Her father (Highsmith, played by Sam Wanamaker) is distraught, especially as the investigator he has on the case (Campanella, played by Danny Glover) hasn't managed to find any solid leads. The fact that Valerie is one of the unluckiest people in the world makes things even trickier, but it also leads one man to come up with a theory. He knows someone employed by Highsmith who is equally unlucky. That man is Proctor (Martin Short), and a plan is formed. There's a chance that Proctor's bad luck will allow him to more closely follow the route taken by Valerie, and allow her to be found.

Based on a French film, La Chevre, Pure Luck is exactly what you might expect it is, a vehicle for Martin Short to commit himself to numerous pratfalls in the name of making viewers laugh. And Short is not the problem here. But I'll get back to him later.

Director Nadia Tass doesn't have a grip on the kind of comedy that would allow this movie to be all it can be. I'm not familiar with the original, which may well be a quirky and gentle comedy throughout, but this American take on the material feels too low-key and low-energy. It needs a sense of the bad luck piling up, allowing set-pieces to start small and escalate all the way to some grand finale. That never happens. The film isn't helped by the writing from Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris, two individuals who have worked together on a number of better comedies than this one. The problem is that they are aware of the focus of the film being on the physical side of things, and that keeps the dialogue as a lesser priority. The fact that the physical side of things isn't as good as it could be leaves you with a film that has no memorable sequences AND no decent dialogue. There's also a very strange section of the film that starts to change the rules, but it is soon dropped without any satisfying resolution.

Let's get back to Short anyway. I love Martin Short. He's a fantastic comic actor, arguably one of the very greats, and this lead role would seem to be ideal for him. It's not though, mainly because the whole film depends on him tripping, falling, and hurting himself in a variety of ways. He does what he can, but the lack of variety makes it soon feel a bit sad, watching someone throw themselves around for something not really worthy of their commitment to the cause. Glover gets the better end of the stick, disbelieving the ridiculous theory until he starts to see it play out in front of his eyes. He also has to pretend to be taking orders from Short for most of the movie, which allows for a couple of fun moments. Kelley does well with her small amount of screentime, also full of pratfalls, Wanamaker and Harry Shearer (who comes up with the central theory) are just fine, and Scott Wilson has a bittersweet turn as an opportunistic criminal who doesn't realise how much bad luck is about to rain upon him.

Pure Luck is absolutely forgettable, and I am sure that there are very few people who would seek it out. Fans of Short, maybe, and people like me. If you're in the latter category then I feel very sorry for you.

3/10

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Ani-MAY-tion Month: The Simpsons Movie (2007)

I have been a fan of The Simpsons for years. In fact, the show has had a large fanbase since it peaked in the mid-nineties and made its way into the public consciousness and made such a huge impact on recent pop culture. When the movie was finally released I, and many others, felt that it was coming along too late. The show had started to dip in quality, a dip that would last a number of years (and some might say it has never recovered), and it wasn't quite the non-stop source of hilarity it used to be. I was disappointed when I came out of the cinema in 2007, having just seen the movie. Now, watching the movie again, I have no idea why.

There are two things worth remembering, I think. One, The Simpsons remains one of the best shows on TV ever, even when it's not hitting the heights it once reached. Two, The Simpsons Movie is just about the best TV to film transition that any fan of the show could have hoped for. Everything is kept the same, but it's all given a bit of scope and polish to make it worthy of a feature film.

I'm not going to tell you about the characters. Anyone who doesn't know the Simpson family probably doesn't read this blog. But the plot is all about pollution bringing about some major trouble in Springfield. There's a dome placed over the entire area, and the residents are left to their own devices as resources run low and tempers start to run high. Homer is the man who caused this situation, in his usual carefree manner, but he might just be the man who can fix it all.

Everyone involved in the TV show gets to shine in the movie version, which is as it should be. Nobody would want a movie that didn't have Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria involved. And there are some great vocal cameos from Green Day, Tom Hanks and others, with a fantastic role for Albert Brooks (as Russ Cargill, the man with a plan to "clean up" Springfield).

Director David Silverman does a fantastic job of keeping everything both cinema-worthy and in line with the show, while the wealth of writers who contributed to the script have all helped to craft something worthwhile. Normally seeing so many writers listed would be cause for alarm, but The Simpsons has always used a huge team of writers, so it's no surprise to see so many of them working on the movie.

There are things that fans will wish had been changed, and one of the most common complaints is how some of the major supporting characters are sidelined, but I can't really envision a better outcome than this. The storyline is decent, the gags are great, the characters are unchanged, no punches seem to be pulled, and there's a ridiculous sequence in which Bart skateboards through the town absolutely naked that is as smart as it is cheeky and hilarious. And those last eight words sum up why I'll never stop loving The Simpsons.

9/10

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Chicken Little (2005)

Unjustly overlooked by fans of fun animation, Chicken Little remains a firm favourite of mine and provides a great mix of cute, wacky and outright crazy.

The basic story is all about our titular character (voiced by Zach Braff), an innocent chicken who finds himself the butt of many jokes when he mistakenly tries to warn people that the sky is falling after something hits him on the head. The crowd that gathers around him assumes that it was just an acorn. It wasn't, but just how will Chicken Little manage to convince everyone that he is the only one who knows the worrying truth. Perhaps his friends - Runt Of The Litter (Steve Zahn), Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack) and Fish Out Of Water (Dan Molina) - can be of some use. Perhaps.

Rattling along at a great pace, Chicken Little marries lovely visuals to a multitude of great gags, big and small, and also throws in the usual Disney life lesson. Thankfully, the life lesson part isn't overdone and plays perfectly for the intended audience while the laughs keep coming thick and fast.

The voice cast also includes people like Patrick Warburton, Harry Shearer, Wallace Shawn, Fred Willard, Patrick Stewart, Don Knotts, Amy Sedaris and even Adam West. Which means that it's brilliant.

Lots of people had a hand in forming the screenplay and adding dialogue, including director Mark Dindal, but this doesn't leave the movie feeling overcrowded. On the contrary, Dindal in his directorial role makes sure that everything feels perfectly paced and balanced.

A film that doesn't deserve to be so easily forgotten and/or dismissed - give Chicken Little a viewing and find out how enjoyable it is for yourself.

8/10

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