I brought this DVD on the reputation of Spinal Tap.To cut a long review short.Bad News(Rick Mayall,Adrian Edmonson,Nigel Planer)is much better, louder,funnier and above all they are brits doing british comedy.Bad news would win in a battle of the bands all day long.

A friend's exhortations to watch this "hilarious" rock-romp led me to the DVD player one wet and windy wednesday. My expectations were admittedly sky high as the same person had been the source of many other mirth packed evenings. However, the promised chuckles ( how I prayed for them to appear) did not emerge. I found it dated and over-rated, with most of what paltry humour there was relying on jokes about sex, airport metal detectors and misunderstandings between the thinly sketched "main" characters.In order for me to laugh I need to feel empathy for the main characters in a film. The central actors in this film, however, elicited none. They appeared to be very slow on the uptake and elicited sympathy and even contempt-the enemies of humour.There was also a cruel streak of "mocking the afflicted" running through this offering and the whole production just confirmed my long held belief that documentaries can never be funny and just succeed in exploiting vulnerable people.

Thiis has been hailed as the funniest film ever, but I'm afraid that is way off the mark. You need to be interested in heavy metal / glam rock to understand this. It is not side splittingly funny, but at times it is very clever. Overall I like this film but one has to wait rather too long for the classic lines to make it a favourite. This one doesn't go to 11...

Did Elton John watch this before making Tantrums and Tiaras? Did Madonna see it before making 'In Bed with Madonna'? Have Metallica watched this before releasing `Metallica' (the black album)? Did U2 see this before visiting Graceland in Rattle and Hum? Have Velvet Revolver watched it before forming a band?

The humour throughout Spinal Tap is dry and observed rather than slapstick in your face and that is fine by me. Hissy fits about food, on stage pompous prop failure, the tuning of a violin used during a guitar solo, radio interference on stage, the constant replacement of drummers, getting lost on the way to the stage, the revival of the career in Japan, amplifiers that go to eleven, all the jokes and clich??s are there, in fact I think this film may have invented a few.

In much the same way that the British TV series `Drop the Dead donkey' character Damien Day successfully lampooned clich?? overly self important `on the spot' news reporters, to the point where I struggle to take these `news hounds' seriously, I find it hard to take most TV `Rockumentary' programmes seriously as a result of Spinal Tap. Musicians and producers talking to camera about their `work' just isn't the same.

Both influenced and influencing Spinal Tap is a work of comedy genius. Not many films have dialogue that enter the language, the phrase `its all a bit spinal tap' I have heard used in the media on countless occasions, and will be for years to come. There is little funnier in film or television when life imitates art, and art then imitates life to this degree. If we can see it, why can't they? All you need to enjoy this is a sense of humour.

they REALLY played their instruments......brilliant as a movie. positively hysterical if you are a musician.