Subpar Mockumentary

Rating: 6/10 (29 October 2002)

As a huge fan of the mockumentary genre (e.g. Zelig, Bob Roberts, Best in Show), I was heartily looking forward to This Is Spinal Tap. Unfortunately, the film did not live up to my expectations. While there are a few good gags (although most have already been heavily sampled by sketch comedy shows and repeated ad naseum by too-young-for-Python-quoters), it is on the whole a dull and lackluster affair. While I applaud Reiner, Guest, McKean and Shearer for attempting something truly great, I cannot join others in heralding its execution. The songs are at the same time lacking in believability and too close to the source material. The strife between the band members is overly predicable, with an irritating and chuckle-free Yoko character parading around in `Australian nightmare outfits' and a series of thinly veiled nasty cracks at the late great Keith Moon. And though it obviously is the model of virtually all of VH1's original programming (e.g. Behind the Music), it does come to a trite and cloying faux-happy ending that puts the Air `thank God Kurt Cobain shot himself' Supply story to shame. I was pleased to see a youthful Dana Carvey as a mime waiter, and Bruno Kirby gushing over Sinatra, but even an endless supply of pleasant cameos does not a movie make (a lesson Loaded Weapon 1 taught us so well). On the whole, while I might recommend This Is Spinal Tap as an important piece of cinema history, I would not have placed it anywhere near the top 100 comedies of all time.