Films > Film Reviews

T2 Trainspotting

Cinema City

29/01/17

Let’s get straight to the point; Danny Boyles T2 Trainspotting is a great movie, it’s just not as good as the first Trainspotting movie. So there you have it – sequel in “not-as-good-as-original” shocker. It’s certainly not a rare thing, but in a moment, I’m going to attempt to explain why in this case.  First, however, feel free to enjoy this brief, spoiler-free synopsis. Twenty years after Mark “Rent-boy” Renton took the money and ran, he’s returned to Edinburgh from Holland, where he relocated shortly after the events of the first movie. His motive unclear, he catches up with Spud (still on smack), Sick Boy (now on coke), and Begbie (still an incarcerated psychopath who wants to kill Renton for his past betrayal). It’s not long before old friends are back together, scheming and plotting side-by-side, and inevitably – to quote Spud “First there’s an opportunity, and then there’s betrayal.”

The story is dark, funny, and at times unflinchingly melancholic. It also (just) manages to avoid falling into the crime caper clichés that the original movie inadvertently helped create. The script is pure gold, as is the direction. Boyle too, manages to employ his trademark style without falling victim to over-trope, showing that he too has grown over the last twenty, and that this is neither a swan song nor a nostalgia cash cow like many sequels these days. The real success of T2, however, is the main cast. MacGregor, Miller, Bremner, and Carlyle, deliver their performances like they owe it their lives (which is actually kind of accurate), relishing in their return, and making the most of both the great script and direction. So far, so good.

The thing about Trainspotting 1 (T1?) was that it was a zeitgeisty, energetic, defiant, Britpop fuelled masterclass in social-pessimism. It was a fuck you to the new wave of “out-of-the-woods” politics, and the upwardly mobile cool Britannia of the time; a stark reminder of the lowest levels of survival in a free world, the elephant shit in the room of national pride, if you will. The thing about being “zeitgeisty” (meaning of the spirit of its time – don’t be afraid to ask, we haven’t all done Media Studies), is that, times they do-a-change. These days, we’re faced with a seemingly unending time of economic uncertainty; of blaming the vulnerable, the weak, and the foreign; politicians who trade in fear, not hope, and to comment on this with the same effectiveness would require a different setting, because Boyle’s fictional world has gone from being a surreal cinematic slum-party to a stark glimpse into the future prospects of many parts of the UK. The new message of “alternative facts”, austerity, and reality TV has out-fucked Boyle’s dystopia, and these days choosing life is no longer enough: now you’ve got to fucking beg for it. Instead, Boyle uses Welsh’s characters twenty years on to reflect the disillusionment of a generation now nearing middle age. An equally valid point, just one that’s not quite so culturally on-the-money as the one he made two decades ago.

So, whilst T2 is, in my opinion, as well made as T1, it’s now much more of a personal ride than a scathing social comment, As such, it doesn’t have the quite the impact or effect of the original. Also, it gets a bit sentimental towards the end, and as good as it is to see the return of James Cosmo as Renton Senior in a beautifully understated performance, Kelly Macdonald’s cameo feels both shoehorned in, and too fleeting, in equal measure.

As I started by saying, I thought it was great. Not everyone did, however, and I can see why, but I think it may be one of those movies that gets better with a second watch; one, much like our returning anti-heroes twenty years on, now devoid of quite so much expectation.

8/10