This Is Spinal Tap

The rock scene hasn't been the same since this hilarious 1984 comedy. Read full review

One of the funniest, most intelligent, most original films. Read full review

Deserves an encore anyway for its invaluable contributions to the vocabulary of rock'n' roll and pop culture. Read full review

Screamingly funny. Few films, if any, can match Spinal Tap for consistent laughs. Every scene is a classic. Read full review

80 minutes of total joy, its momentum utterly uncompromised, every single second an invitation to snort uncontrollably. I can hardly wait to watch it again. Read full review

The greatest laugh-out-loud comedy of the 80s. Read full review

This Is Spinal Tap is virtually guaranteed to appeal to nearly everyone. The film contains everything from laugh aloud moments to scenes that will have even the most dry, humorless viewers smiling with unrestrained mirth. Read full review

This is Spinal Tap is hilarious to everyone who’s not a musician. Because for as ridiculous and perverse as Rob Reiner’s heavy metal mockumentary gets, the slim, 82-minute comedy gnaws at more truths than any other rock ‘n’ roll biopic ever put to celluloid. Read full review

There are too many classic moments in this film to possibly count, and I won't even bother trying to quote lines or describe gags. Read full review

Time hasn't dulled the agonising richness of the songs, the toe-stiffening stupidity of the on-stage concepts, or the endless pith of Tufnel and St Hubbins' wisdom. Even if you've seen it an unhealthy number of times, have another go. Read full review

Reiner's brilliantly inventive script and smart visuals avoid all the obvious pitfalls, making this one of the funniest ever films about the music business. Read full review

A towering achievement in cinema, music, and life art. Funnier and more prescient every time I see it. Read full review

Reiner has made a very hip, sophisticated sendup, but his affection and feel for life on the road keep the satire friendly. This is surely the funniest movie ever made about rock and roll, and one of the funniest things about it is that it may also be one of the most accurate. [5 March 1984, p.81]

Reiner, with McKean, Guest and Harry Shearer (who plays bassist Derek Smalls), have done a great job in creating and portraying characters that are dimwitted, cliched and yet oddly endearing. [20 March 1984]

This fictional "rockumentary" about a mediocre, aging heavy-metal band's last tour of America is surprisingly modest, subtle and funny. Not only is this the kind of satiric treatment rock music has been crying out for, it may be one of the most original film comedies in years. [20 Apr 1984]

A heady flow of brilliant stupidity. Read full review

So intensely funny that the viewer must hang on every word: comic gems spill forth almost continuously. Read full review

Spinal Tap is still on the right side of the fine line between stupid and clever. Read full review

A vastly amusing satire of heavy metal bands. Read full review

That rare comedy that is as completely entertaining now in its re-release...as it was back then.

One of the great movie satires. And if it isn't the funniest rock spoof ever made, it certainly shares the title with "The Rutles." Read full review

''It's such a fine line between stupid and . . . '' ''And clever,'' muse the band members collectively. It certainly is- and the delightful This Is Spinal Tap stays on the right side of that line. Read full review

Its cleverness is exceptionally congenial and sustained. [13 Apr 1984, p.B1]

The key to the movie's success is that it was made by people who know and doubtless even enjoy rock in all its infinite, often tedious variety. This distinguishes Spinal Tap from the usual run of spoof, created at a distance by bemused outsiders (Johnny Carson in a mop-top wig, etc.). Reiner and company actually understand the media they are lampooning; the result is not only funny, but lethal. [27 Apr 1984, p.D1]

The group's members come off more like real musicians than parodists. Read full review

For all its japes and jokes, the movie is really about exhaustion of the spirit: sitting in a bleak hotel suite at 4 a.m. with the bad taste of last night in the mouth and the feeling that tomorrow will not be a better day. Read full review

It's no wonder young musicians say they learned to be rock stars from This Is Spinal Tap. It came to satirize and stayed -- and stays on -- to celebrate. Read full review

Hilarious pseudo-documentary spoof of a British rock group that was so on-target in its satire, many viewers took it for the real thing. Read full review

The material is consistently clever and funny. Read full review

Begs the question: Did the lads from Squatney trail the zeitgeist at every turn, or were cobandleaders David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel simply in touch with their past and ahead of their time? Read full review