The Princess Bride (1987)

"Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?"

"Yes."

"Morons."

It's a genuine mystery: This Is Spinal Tap is one of the funniest films ever. How, then, can pretty much the same team- Rob Reiner directs, Christopher Guest has a major role- produce something so unfunny as this.

I can see what it’s trying to do- play with the silliness of the tropes and cliches. Hence we have exaggerated tropes such as a princess with absurd faith that her ridiculously heroic man will save her, and a Spanish swordsman who lives to avenge his father’s death. But none of this is addressed with any real wit, and it’s obly the names (Prince Humperdinck) and cameos from the likes of Peter Cook and Mel Smith that tell us this is intended to be a comedy.

All this is narrated by Columbo to his annoying, sport-obsessed grandson for no apparent reason, in a framing sequence that has no obvious reason to be there. It describes a weird mediaeval word where fictional countries mix with real ones and people seem to have heard of Australia. And where there are, er, “rodents of unusual size” which look awfully like a man in a suit. It’s clearly meant to be funny. It isn’t. An odd misfire.

I very strongly suspect, mind, that the “battle of wits” scene strongly influenced the first episode of Sherlock.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

"Well, I don't really think that the end can be assessed, as of itself, as being the end, because what does the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say 'if the universe is indeed infinite, then how… what does that mean'? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you…"

Yes, I know. I've reviewed two musicals in a row, sort of. I love this film, though. It isn't so much that it's laugh-out-loud funny; in fact, considering the subject matter, the humour is actually quite gentle and ironic. There are some nicely quirky bits that are funny because they ring true- Nigel's disgruntlement with the small bread on his rider, and the band panicking at being unable to find the stage being two of the funniest.

The songs are superb, hilarious pastiches from throughout the history of rock from grainy monochrome footage of a mid 60s incarnation reminiscent of the Who to a cynical hippy cash-in from a few years later. They're genuinely great rock songs, and the lyrics are the funniest thing in the film, from the arse-clenchingly ignorant pretentiousness of Stonehenge to the jaw-dropping sexism of Big Bottom, probably the greatest ever song about anal sex, God help us.

Most of the time, though, the band is a piss-take of the heavy metal at the time, with the Stonehenge debacle even being taken from a real life experience of the Black Sabbath line-up of the early '80s. This is heavy metal before the LA-dominated "hair rock" began to arrive in the mid-'80s; the vibe is much more NWOBHM, with flying V's and stage moves taken straight out of the repertoire of Kiss.

One thing that dates this film more than anything is the idea that rock stars are past it by the age of forty-five; that sort of attitude would become passé with the advent of Live Aid just a year later. A real life Spinal Tap would have survived the Yoko issues, the declining audiences and the ropey "big in Japan" period to be raking it in today, no matter how many drummers had to die to get there.

The drummer bloodbath is a prime example of how improvisation leads to so many of the best things about the film. Many of the exchanges remind me of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Derek and Clive. It's a real strength of the "mockumentary" format.

This is a brilliantly crafted piece of observational comedy and a compulsory fixture of every self-respecting tour bus, although it probably helps if, like me, you're a total rock 'n' roll anorak. This is a film so good that it inspired not only an album cover but also a considerably less funny pseudo-remake from no less a band than Metallica. Surely there could be no higher compliment.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

"Don't tell me you got tied up?"

"No, just handcuffed a little…"

I don't really know a lot about musicals. In fact, my knowledge of the format is pretty much entirely limited to The Rocky Horror Show, a certain episode of Buffy and a certain Doctor Who stage play, starring your actual Jon Pertwee, which I saw at Birmingham in 1989. So you'll have to forgive my total ignorance of whatever the tropes are and how the format is supposed to work. I'm usually a bit wary of the musical format for the usual predictable objection that characters suddenly breaking into song during a narrative can be a bit of a problem for me, and I won't dent there's a bit of that here. It isn't that I have a problem with the lack of realism. Suspension of disbelief and realism can go hang- let's go and do some violence to that fourth wall! But the songs can slow things down, and leave me drumming my fingers until stuff can start happening again.

 I enjoyed the songs here, though. For a start, they're good. There are lots of different styles, and some really great ideas. The Motown-style Greek chorus is a masterstroke, and the decision to make Steve Martin's manic, sadistic dentist into a leather-jacketed rock 'n' roller means he gets his very own '50s rock 'n' roll song- in fact, he reminds me of the similar character from the Rocky Horror Show. The best songs, of course, are from the mean, green mother from outer space itself, voiced by Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops. The star-studded cast is fantastic, and (obviously, as the film can afford much better performers from the Saturday Night Live stable) much, much better than in the original film. Aside from Rick Moranis, Steve Martin and Bill Murray, we get cameos from the likes of John Candy and his Christopher Guest from This is Spinal Tap (who rather surreally happens to be the 5th Baron Haden-Guest). Even the extras include none other than a young Danny John-Jules. The only part which I thought was better portrayed in the original was Wilbur Force (Arthur Denton in the remake). Bill Murray is superb, but Jack Nicholson is better with his more darkly humorous portrayal.

It's also superbly shot by Frank Oz, taking full advantage of the much bigger budget to produce a much more visually exciting experience. The highlight, of course, is Audrey II itself, which simply looks amazing, and moves amazingly, too. There's a very real sense of the poverty of Skid Row which the studio-bound original simply couldn't convey.

One thing which really surprises me, though, are the massive changes which have been made to the plot (spoilers follow). There's a happy ending and there are far fewer murders- in fact, there are only two deaths as opposed to, I think, five in the original. One character survives who originally died, and another prominent character survives who originally died. The whole plot is much, much more streamlined to incorporate the songs. The storytelling is much, much slicker, but there's a more sentimental tone, which loses a lot of both the deeply macabre, dark humour of the original and also the absurdist silliness. I think the remake is on balance the better film, but the original is still the better script. Both films are well worth watching, though, and for someone who doesn't do musicals I enjoyed this hugely.