Sexy, sad, violent, and appropriately nostalgic, T2 is Train-spot on, and Ewan McGregor’s best film in years
The movie focuses on characters looking back on their lives wondering if they have done the best they could have
SIXTEEN grand.
While a sizeable amount in 2017, it felt HUGE in 1996 as Renton sauntered over Waterloo Bridge with it in a holdall, leaving Sick Boy & co snoozing away.
Well it’s about to feel like a lead weight around Mark’s legs as he’s back and ready to face the music — mainly because he thinks Begbie is in prison.
He soon finds himself up to his neck in bother alongside Sick Boy and a ridiculous idea involving brothels and EU funding.
The entire cast are back for one last dance, looking as they should — 20 years older.
A bit podgy, weathered and balder (except Ewan McGregor, who looks like a handsome Hollywood star, that is).
Iggy Pop is banging away, the drugs are flying around with more abandon than a house-warming at Supernova Heights and Begbie is on the loose again.
But importantly, is it any good?
Can it still speak to us old farts in the same way now we’ve all got mortgages and stiff knees? Yes.
People have moaned about this being too nostalgic and unrealistic.
Its whole premise, its entire raison d’etre, is that fundamentally it’s a story about people getting old, looking back on their lives and wondering if they’ve done as best they can to the people they love.
Quite how this could have been done without being nostalgic or looking back is beyond me.
Moan that you didn’t like the story by all means, but moaning that T2 is nostalgic is like complaining that Top Gear has cars in it.
Can newcomers watch T2 without having seen Trainspotting?
Sure, although why you would look at this thinking ‘Quite like the look of that’ without visiting a cultural phenomenon is beyond me, but sure - knock yourselves out.
The nucleus of Begbie and Sickboy’s ire is all explained well enough - and the neat flashbacks/re-enactments work, in my opinion, very well indeed.
It’s crammed full of easter-eggs that will please fans of the original without alienating newcomers.
There are baggy bits in the plot and certain elements feel shoe-horned in (the updated Choose Life monologue worked as a trailer, less so in the actual film) but in all honesty, it doesn’t matter.
Yes it’s nostalgic, but so what?
There are so many reboots, sequels and remakes of films that certainly do not warrant such treatment, it’s about time something came along and did its predecessor proud.
The script, the acting, the unbelievable directing from Danny Boyle, the music, the graphics... as with the previous movie, it feels very, well, modern.
This is Ewan McGregor’s best film in years and Robert Carlyle’s performance of a lifetime (and I’m including his appearance in Cracker).
For a film based on regret, ageing and legacy, it manages to tread the fine line between nostalgia and revelling in past glories extremely well.
It’s tragic, funny, sexy, sad, violent, foul-mouthed, absurd and utterly, utterly tremendous.
★★★★★