T2 Trainspotting the Boys Are Back in Town… out NOW
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CERTIFICATE 18 DIRECTOR Danny Boyle STARRING Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Begbie still has a Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner, Anjela Nedyalkova SCREENPLAY John Hodge few issues with DISTRIBUTOR Sony RUNNING TIME 117 mins personal space. T2 TRAINSPOTTING The boys are back in town… OUT NOW n paper, it looks like a scam. The sort of are glorious – Spud freefalling into his take-the-money-and-run job Renton (Ewan old friend’s arms. Some disappoint MacGregor) pulled at the end of Danny Boyle’s – the ‘Choose Life’ speech needs no 1996 era-defining masterpiece. Get the gang dissection. Some – such as when one –O director Boyle, novelist Irvine Welsh, screenwriter John character quotes Welsh’s original Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald and a cast now more novel and another acts it out – are so used to Hollywood than Holyrood – back together; loosely postmodern they pull you, thrillingly, adapt another of Irvine Welsh’s junk epics (this time, down the wormhole to Malkovich-land. Porno), and retire on the attendant millions. Or maybe not. Once more, Boyle’s direction is the star here. Busy with verbs, spiky with For 20 years, T2 was the elephant in life, the film fizzes along to a fantastic SEE THIS the room, the gang perhaps mindful of soundtrack. But it’s also slightly IF YOU Sick Boy’s dictum: “You’ve got it, and diffuse: without Renton’s acid LIKED… then you lose it, and it’s gone forever.” voiceover, the narrative loses that 46 TRAINSPOTTING But Boyle, for one, has never lost it, monomaniacal focus, swapping the 47 1996 and every frame of this film means purity of the original high for a cocktail Iggy Pop, Dale something to him, and those who were of different uppers and downers. Winton and there the first time. Dizzyingly meta, With Renton at the centre, everyone The Worst Toilet maddeningly broad, then oddly moving, else was a (brilliantly realised) bit-part In Scotland T2 takes some getting your head round, player in his story – the way we all = Brit classic. even for the faithful. feel when we’re young. With all four HUMAN TRAFFIC It begins, of course, with Renton’s leads jostling for that centre, Renton 1999 sprinting feet. But they’re pounding becomes the everyman he always Warmest and a treadmill, rather than Princes Street, threatened to be. However, when he’s wittiest of the and he can’t outrun the treachery of singing with Sick Boy (no really) and post-Trainspotting his past. A health scare – and worse sprinting with Spud – or from Begbie Brit flicks. Nice one bruva! – drags him back to a Leith of steep – the film crackles with the old black decline and slow regeneration. Here, magic. And of its many surprises, 24 HOUR PARTY Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) pimps it saves the best for last. The neon- PEOPLE 2002 Madchester’s out his girlfriend Veronika (Anjela drenched final reckoning is heart- musical history Nedyalkova); Begbie (Robert Carlyle) stopping; the final shot, heart-melting. becomes a brilliantly is taking the messy route out of prison; Trainspotting, you see, was never meta comedy. and Spud (Ewen Bremner) is still about the drugs, or the money. It was FoR MoRE a junkie with the soul of a poet. about youth, about escape. Twenty REvIEWS vISIT “You’re a tourist in your own years on, with middle age encroaching GAMESRADAR. CoM/ToTALFILM youth,” Sick Boy tells Renton, after a and all hopes of escape long much-deserved beating. “What other evaporated, T2 isn’t about the drugs, moments will you be revisiting?” As or the money either. It’s about chasing Renton, Sick Boy and Veronika cook up the old highs, realising you can’t reach a new get-rich-quick scheme, the short them and then, if you’re lucky, finding answer is, practically all of them. Some new ones. Matt Glasby predicted interest curve™ THE VERDICT thrilled Running Singing Wiser, sadder but still very much entertained Reckoning Robbing Scheming alive and kicking, T2 is a film that nodding off Falling Tripping Beating Choosing knows you can’t compete with the ZZZZZZZZZ Running Mourning ghosts of the past. But at least you running time 0 25 50 75 100 110 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 can dance with them..