Overdue sequel strictly for fans of original
This is no longer a film about angry nihilistic heroin addicts, but about middle-aged losers.
T2: Trainspotting (R16) Directed by Danny Boyle Starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner 117 mins IT’S been 21 years since the first Trainspotting movie left its trail of ‘‘Choose Life’’ posters across student bedroom walls.
Time enough for Britain to reject one Conservative government and come full circle back to another. But the political energy of the original movie is absent from the sequel, T2: Trainspotting: this is no longer a film about angry nihilistic heroin addicts, but about middle-aged losers.
Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) is back in Edinburgh, two decades after cheating his friends Begbie, Sickboy and Spud (Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller and Ewen Bremner) of their share of the spoils of a drug deal.
At first glance, he’s done the best of the quartet: Begbie is back in prison, Spud back on heroin and Sickboy is fantasising about owning a brothel, while running a deserted pub and snorting mountains of coke.
Slowly, their lives re-entwine. A plot which diverts substantially from its source – Irvine Welsh’s follow-up novel Porno – is threadbare in parts, but Boyle’s energetic direction, beautiful set design and engaging vignettes – notably an uproarious heist mounted by Renton and Sickboy upon the unsuspecting punters in a loyalist pub – hold the attention.
Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge chose to keep the once- Supplied iconic, now much copied ‘‘choose life’’ speech, but this time it’s less viciously political and much more personal, meandering off into Renton’s own individual lament on life. Boyle says the film has hope, and it does, surprisingly, for Spud, but really it’s about the loss of hope, the disappointment of realising it’s too late to fulfil your potential.
McGregor, his feud with Boyle now over, has his star power, but the highlights are a remarkable turn from Miller, angry, frustrated and angular, and Bremner, who uses his physical traits to deliver a performance both funny and poignant.
A reliance on flashback will entrance fans of the original, but exclude newcomers; similarly the soundtrack offers hints of the first time, before closing with a rendition of the signature piece, Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life.
Boyle wanted to dodge the curse of the sequel. He’s managed that – but the price is a movie that will be loved by those who loved the original, but which may be irrelevant to those too young to care. - Steve Kilgallon