Choose a follow-up? What did you think of the soundtrack, the transformations and the exploits of the re-formed cast of characters, 20 years after the original?
- This article contains spoilers.
Has it really been 20 years? The original Trainspotting presented life in the 1990s as a stark choice between drug addiction and a dreary consumer lifestyle. Two decades on and it’s not just the fucking big televisions that have become even more gigantic. Britain has changed so much that Ewan McGregor’s Mark “Rent Boy” Renton barely recognises Edinburgh after returning home from Amsterdam, where he fled with £16,000 in drug money after the climactic events of the first movie. But while heroin no longer plays a pivotal role in the sequel, Danny Boyle’s return to the austere tower blocks and run-down drinking holes of working class Scotland is in many ways closer to the original Trainspotting novel in spirit, even featuring scenes from Irvine Welsh’s book that did not previously make it to the screen. Moreover, it retains many of the same motifs that made Boyle’s 1996 film such a brutal shot in the arm, from extreme violence to ill-advised relationships and ultimately, icy-hearted betrayal.
A hit with the critics, if not quite on the level of the original movie, T2 Trainspotting is being hailed as that rare creature: the sequel that does not destroy the legacy of its predecessor. Here’s your chance to give your verdict on the movie’s key talking points.
Related: ‘Choose Facebook, revenge porn, zero hours': what does the Trainspotting speech mean today?
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