T2 Trainspotting | Film Review

Gamelkateinthecinema | T2 Trainspotting

Director: Danny Boyle

Release: 2017
Writers: Adaptation by John Hodge | Novel "Porno" by Irvine Welsh

Genre: Drama/Black Comedy/Revenge

Rating: R-18 Drug Use, Strong Language, Sexual Content, Violence

If you are going into T2 with high hopes, you wont be let down. Forget a movie that fits the brand of the original; this is the original. Same cast, same crew, same locations, and same Scottish banter that made Trainspotting so spot on.

Not to be confused with the British Tea Company (also orange, also called T2), I am talking about the new sequel to the 1996 film Trainspotting. 

Based on the book by Irvine Welsh and once again directed by Danny Boyle, this instalment is set twenty years after Renton (Ewan McGregor) deserts his mates in London with a huge bag of cash (if there is a faint link here foreshadowing McGregor’s future fame, then I would underline it with a big red pen). 

I would recommend watching the first film again (or reading the book) before rushing to the cinema. With no context you may leave feeling confused and disgusted, in which case you would have missed the point.

As most films made after 2001 (and most sequels for that matter) seem to do, I felt the plot was more complicated than it needed to be. A tendency to show off often comes with the bigger budget of a sequel. I don't think this necessarily detracted from the film over all however. There were moments of splendour where old and new seemed to merge, such as the flashbacks and familiar Scottish slang. Spud (Ewan Bremner) stepped up and did a fantastic job as the heroine-junkie-turned-nice-guy making him my favourite supporting actor.

The treatment of women was, as usual, a bit of a disappointment to me. The reappearance of Gail (Shirley Henderson) and Diane (Kelly MacDonald) was set to add some solid female acting to the film and further strengthen the connection between the past and present storylines. Unfortunately we don’t see much of these two, and are instead in the company of the young working girl Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) for much of the movie. 

Not hard to look at, but hardly viable, the beautiful Bulgarian Veronika mixes with the worst of Scotland’s Criminal society, works for two rival turf lords and is somehow still trusted and loved by everyone. Not to mention her perfect fringe that never seems to need a wash. 

Bonus points if you spotted Harry Potter’s Cho Chang (Katie Leung) at one point, too.

If your week needs an injection of black comedy with a side of good old-fashioned bare-knuckle brawling, this is the place to score. If ‘first there was an opportunity… then there was a betrayal’ is a recurring theme, it surely has nothing to do with the price of your ticket. 

A rugged, jarring and unflinching ugly-pretty masterpiece, 

T2 is as captivating on screen as Scotland is IRL.

Rating: 8/10

All images taken from the official T2 Trainspotting Trailer 2017, copyright to Sony Pictures Releasing UK. 

I do not own the rights to these images. All text is written by me and is my own personal opinion.