First movie review: "This Is Spinal Tap"

Picture this: a movie about a 1980s hair metal band that never existed.  It hits on every hair metal band stereotype:  the sex, drugs, costumes, ridiculous stage props, the makeup, things they put in their pants to enlarge themselves, out of control guitar solos, etc etc.  Now picture that it's filmed in the style of one of those bad TV rockumentaries, with the camera following the bands every single move both onstage and backstage, and camera angles that always seem to be too zoomed in and really poorly focused.  Now picture that the members of this band and the crew that's with them are completely clueless and constantly high, and everything that could go wrong does.  Sounds like a hilarious idea for a movie, right?  There's only two major problems:

It's already been made, and I wasn't laughing.  

Now before you obsessed Spinal Tap fans spam me with all kinds of hate mail, just listen to what I have to say.  "This Is Spinal Tap" seemed like it cared too much about making and authentic-looking rockumentary that it almost seems to forget why it was made in the first place:  to make FUN of rockumentaries.

There are absolutely funny moments in "This Is Spinal Tap".  The discussion about how their amps actually go up to 11 was absolutely priceless.  There's also a really funny scene in which the band can't seem to find the stage their supposed to be performing on.  And you can't forget the discussions about how their drummers keep dying in the most ridiculous ways (most notably spontaneous combustion).  But the biggest problem in this movie is that in between these genuinely funny moments we have to watch scene after scene of stuff that looks like it was literally recorded right off of a VH1 documentary about a real band.  We're forced to watch stage performance after stage performance of rock songs that, with a few exceptions, feel like genuine 1980s hair metal songs.  It's like they geared these sections towards an audience who finds VH1 classic as hilarious and well-written as Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  There's scene after scene of them talking about gigs getting cancelled, scene after scene of them just sitting around their dressing room, and interview after interview with the director in which they just talk about how the band got together and how they're really tight.  While it's all very convincing, its not necessarily funny.

What disappointed me even more is the fact that they saved many pretty funny bits for DURING THE CREDITS.  I think I laughed more in the short interviews during the credits than I did while watching the movie (which really isn't saying much).

Maybe I'm being a bit too hard on Spinal Tap.  After all, it was one of the first ever mock rockumentaries.  Maybe it's just that many more movies and TV shows have improved on this concept of a mockumentary, and watching the first of its kind is like trying to amuse yourself with an hour and a half of Pong in 2009.  Whatever the case, watching "This Is Spinal Tap" today certainly made me question why the film was so raved about upon its initial release in 1984.

I give it 2/5 stars.

And I know people out there will disagree with me.  Feel free to voice your opinions under the "Comments" section.