Review of T2 Trainspotting (2017) by Bill M — 20 Feb 2017

There are definitely good points to this utterly pointless sequel to the generation defining 1996 masterpiece, for starters these characters seem to bring out the best in the four leads to the point were you wish they had revisited them sooner, back when it would have still been cool and certainly would have been way less of a bleak downer of a maudlin contemplation of middle aged malaise, but anyway.

Ewan McGregor, Ewan Bremmer, Johnny Lee Miller and Robert Carlye all spark to life as these four damaged bastards in a way that they never have in the rest of their careers, im not saying they have never given other great performances, just that they seem the most alive and the most comfortable in the skins of Mark Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and the really terrifying Franco Begbie respectively.

Other plus factors are Danny Boyles still inventive, frenetic direction, another terrific (but far less culturally significant) soundtrack and some wonderfully judged, admittedly moving continuations of the various characters story threads.

The shame of it is how redundant it all is, and truly how phony everything around the four principles feels, it's like the characters have been dragged kicking and screaming back into an unnatural conitnued existence that they seem to awkwardly struggle to comprehend the purpose of the way the audience will be doing, well the way I was anyway.

They clearly were going for the idea that when you get to middle age you yearn for the past and how the now is a dull reflection of the glory that once was, but it really gets that across too well, the film is a victim of it's own commentary on the eternally adolescent, nostalgia addicted culture e now find ourselves in.

The other major problem that I could not get past was Veronica, the quintessential "hooker with a heart of gold", she's a walking archetype, put into the plot as a means of having a younger, outside reflection on the middle aged main gang and their current status in the modern world, she is compleatly unconvincing and distracting, like she walked in from another fucking movie, the scene were she presses Renton on what exactly "Choose Life" means, is the moment the film truly breaks, the meta reflection on the first film becomes overbearing too, with clips and flashbacks only drawing attention to how much cooler, how much more vital, how much more energetic and meaningful the first film was.

Using Begbies unfortunate sexual issue as a means to compare, this is flaccid and impotent, whereas the first is virile and assured. The we come to the ending, if it can be called that, an unsatisfying and dispiriting non-conclusion that says that aside from getting alot worse, things generally dont change and yes, all that is behind you is better than what lies ahead.

It's not a total loss but Trainspotting 2 is an ill-conceived, misguided follow up that brings nothing to the table to make it's belated existence worthwhile in any real or meaningful way. A waste.