T2 Trainspotting homes in on what made the original work so well, and what made its actors stars, to give you a very different kind of belated sequel.
Being Scottish I subscribe to the rule that my favourite film either has to be Trainspotting or Braveheart, personally choosing Trainspotting. Now the long talked about sequel has come around and I had high hopes for it, it was never going to live up to the original but it never set out to. Instead we got a solid follow-up that took us back into this world and showed us what happens when you choose life, but life wants nothing to do with you.
In the years since Renton (Ewan McGregor) ripped off his mates he’s been living in Amsterdam, Spud (Ewen Bremner) has fallen back into heroin use, Sick-Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) has dealing in blackmail porn with his Bulgarian girlfriend Veronica (Anjela Nedyalkova) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) has been behind bars. Against his better judgement, Renton returns home to make amends, only to find that everyone hates him, however Sick-Boy offers to take him in on a project and even though Renton can see it’s a trap, lacking options he agrees to help, eventually getting Spud involved.
Sick-Boy’s plan is to renovate an old pub into a brothel; however he needs start-up money and a business partner to help him. The three friends get to work and find themselves reminiscing, realising that none of them expected to still be alive. However the reunion doesn’t stay happy for very long, Begbie has escaped from prison and is out to tear Mark to pieces.
The brothel plot gives the film an anchor but in truth it plays second fiddle to the overarching theme of friendships turned sour and regret over past mistakes. Where the original film had a devil-may-care viewpoint of 20 something junkies looking to make it day-to-day, this is a more sombre approach, everyone is in their 40s, most of them have kids, their reunion forces everyone to look back on where they went wrong 20 years ago and how that affected them in the time since. It’s a more poignant experience but fitting for how the characters have progressed.
Speaking of which it was nice to see everyone back again, some could’ve used more screen-time, Diane was reduced to a cameo appearance while Spud’s girlfriend Gail had only a single line of dialogue. The new characters found their place but it was Veronica who stood out the most, at first she felt like an exposition dump being the only new member to the group, however she quickly showed herself to be caring, intelligent but also devious who kept herself one step ahead of everyone without anyone catching on.
Renton takes the lead role again, having spent the last 20 years in Amsterdam off heroin and living healthy – a nice explanation for why the skinny little junkie now looks likes a movie-star. His return home is marred by the threat of Begbie hanging over him like a knife but in a very addict like fashion he returns to the toxic life that he tried to get away from, only this time he’s older, more cautious and more hopeless. That’s the biggest change to Renton’s character, his mantra in the first film was Choose Life only now he’s gone through it and realised it’s just as dull and miserable as he thought, McGregor is able to channel that dissatisfaction into almost a mid-life crisis, showing Renton’s fears have shifted from dying young to dying old.
Spud proves just as much a lovable idiot as before, he’s a little more tragic this time having failed as a husband and a father and now accepted that heroin has been the only friend still with him. Despite that though Spud retains his general liking for everyone, as angry as he is at Mark he can’t stay mad and often tries to play peacemaker in the group. His biggest contribution to the film is he starts writing out the events he and his friends went through, it gets a little meta but fans of the book will be happy to hear that a key scene involving Begbie’s father and the origin of the Trainspotting title has been included.
Speaking of Begbie, if anything Carlyle has gotten even more terrifying, especially now that Begbie has nothing to lose, after his initial prison escape he tries to get back into the game with his son Francis Junior, only to realise that Junior’s opportunities are more appealing than what he had. This at first feels like a distraction to keep Begbie out the main plot until he and Mark meet up but it pays out in a strong way with the psychotic madman showing some surprising depth. Carlyle still nails the C-Word spouting, head-kicking psycho but it’s nice to see there’s more to Begbie than that.
Rounding out the cast is Sick-Boy, now going by Simon and still coming up with some get-rich-quick scheme. Sick-Boy plays co-lead to Renton because it’s their relationship that makes up the main plot thread, them being former best friends who now hate each other. The back and forth they have is just as good with both of them often in a verbal spar, most of the time it’s funny but there’s a few moments where it gets personal with the deaths of Tommy and Baby Dawn brought up later on. Like the rest of the cast there’s an older quality to Sick-Boy, even if he hasn’t fully grown up, having Renton back in his life allows him that chance to see just how bad he let his life get away from him.
Of course the fifth returning musketeer is Danny Boyle, no longer the vibrant new-blood that he was in the 90s, now an Oscar Winning and genre defying icon. That does come across in his directional style here, it’s not as shocking as the original film, there are no dead babies, no ‘worst toilet’ and there’s actually very little in terms of drug use which would probably explain why there are not as many drugged-up visuals.
That’s not to say Boyle has lost his style, there’s plenty of moments throughout that remind you of how influential Boyle was and has been throughout his career. From a hilarious segment where Renton and Sick-Boy talk over each other to Veronica with both their separate conversations appearing as text on screen, to a split-screen conversation between Renton and Begbie as they slowly come to realise who they’re talking to, it might not be as surreal as last time but the imagery is just as inventive. There’s also some social commentary, Spud laments about daylight savings, Renton and Sick-Boy are forced improvise a Catholic bashing song and at one point they even get the government involved to give them money for a start-up business.
T2 Trainspotting has had its Judgement Day and it comes out strong, it knows it could never top the original and doesn’t try to, instead delivering a more matured story about those who should’ve died young now growing old. The returning four managed to slip right back into their roles and make their return feel genuine while Boyle replaces shock value with a fun if sombre piece that feels like the best way for these character to continue their story.
T2 Trainspotting is out now in cinemas.
