T2 Trainspotting review: “A sequel that doesn’t disappoint…”

T2 Trainspotting review: The boys are back in town in this energetic, engrossing sequel to the 1996 classic.

Read our T2 Trainspotting review below.

21 years on from the film that defined a decade, Danny Boyle assembles the original team that were responsible for the iconic original. Based on Irvine Welsh‘s novel ‘Porno,’ adapted once again by John Hodge, T2 Trainspotting opens on Ewan McGregor‘s Mark Renton, decades off the smack, whose new drug appears to be fitness. Following an incident in a gym that nearly leaves him in the ground, and various other changes in personal circumstances, Renton returns from Amsterdam, where he has been residing for the last twenty years, to his homeland in Edinburgh. His leaving with £16,000 of his mates’ money back in the mid-nineties didn’t sit too well with the likes of Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner), and most of all Begbie (Robert Carlyle), but Renton chooses to go back and face them, on a personal journey which will hopefully- cure him of his new, very different demons.

I think it’s important to reveal where I stand in terms of my relationship with the original before I post any offerings of judgement on this belated sequel. Trainspotting arrived at a defining period in my own life. I was nineteen, living in a small town, high on the music and cultural changes of quite a pivotal time. Music changed, tastes in film were changing and my own character was heavily influenced by both. As I mentioned above, Trainspotting defined a decade, me as a person, and, in fact, a generation. It has been a firm favourite for many of the years that followed, and the thought of a sequel shook me with fear ever since it was announced that the gang were all going to get back together. They had better not fuck this one up.

Those expecting a rehash of the original film will be sorely disappointed. There can never be a film like Trainspotting. It’s success can never be replicated and these are very different times – but T2 is a very different film. Littered with much of the same directorial style that made the original so memorable, are all present. The characters are all back– the surviving ones anyway, and from the opening frames everything feels very familiar. But it is not the same. The best way to describe the mood of T2 Trainspotting is like going back home after living away for such a long period of time. The buildings are the same, some of the people are the same – some doing the same things, some not; some very much absent. But the place is overall very different. Any attempt to recreate the old days would be instantly redundant, and Danny Boyle’s film in some ways tries to do that, and fails. Which is exactly the point.

The film is seen largely through the eyes of Renton as the returnee, and we see a new Edinburgh through his eyes. An early scene sees him return to his bedroom, such a pivotal location in the original film, where he puts on an instantly recognisable tune on his old-school vinyl record player before hastily retracting the needle. It’s a great moment in the film and one which sums up Boyle and the screenwriter’s approach to everything. There are subtle hints and nods to the first film as we progress through this very new story, and even flashbacks to original footage, but it is never over done or forced. The music choices are new, but they feel familiar; the style is the same, but its also different, and seeing the characters together is welcomed but also not, in a totally unexplained way. It is a series of contradictions.

As you may expect, the four main actors in McGregor, Bremner, Miller and Carlyle truly deliver, and the magnetism between the first three, balanced with the fierce presence of the latter, is pure cinematic magic that could only be because of their history, both as well-written fictional characters deeply etched into history, and actors playing them who largely got their break together off the back of the dynamic original. McGregor and Miller shine in a scene halfway in, all set in a protestant working men’s club, while Carlyle, who’s Begbie is absolutely mind-blowing once more, steals every scene that he is in. Supporting players get a brief time to shine, but sadly Shirley Henderson‘s role as Gail is largely redundant, and Kelly MacDonald, who pops up as Diane in a very fleeting, extended cameo, are the only parts of the film which feel forced and unnecessary. A new role for Anjela Nedyalkova as Sick Boy’s kind-of girlfriend/ business partner Nikki is the saving grace as the only strong, developed female character in the piece. The character is definitely pivotal to the plot, and is involved in some of the film’s stand-out scenes, particularly one in which she asks why Renton and co. constantly spout the iconic phrase ‘Choose Life’.

It has taken nearly 24 hours for the film to settle in my mind, and I really, really like it. It is as good as a sequel to one of the most iconic British films of all time ever  could be. It is a worthy follow-on that does in no way damage the original, and there is more than enough to warrant its existence.

Choose to see it.

T2 Trainspotting review by Paul Heath, January 2017

T2 Trainspotting is released in the UK on January 27th, 2017.