![]() McGregor and Miller slip back into their old characters effortlessly, and Carlyle is clearly having a ball being a more clear-cut antagonist this time around, but the real revelation here is the way in which Bremner expands upon Spud. It’s scuzzy but sumptuous to look at, with a luminescent quality that feels alien to the original, but aligns with how the world has changed, specifically in the lighting measures introduced to combat public drug-taking since 1996. Like the characters, Boyle is back in foreign yet familiar terrain too, recruiting his now regular cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to bring the junkies back in style. These range from a jaw-dropping flashback to the opening of Trainspotting to the less impressive and more trailer-friendly reprise of the “Choose life” speech that narrated it, but no matter what the success rate, writer John Hodge roots them in the self-aware notion that nostalgia can be just as appealing and empty an addiction as anything else. But what T2 lacks in iconic moments, it makes up for in callbacks. It’s considerably lighter on set pieces than the original film, save for a sight gag in a nightclub bathroom and a raucous second act con, which is hilariously and delightfully lifted straight from Irvine Welsh’s literary sequel, Porno. This sequel has long been in development, (with Boyle often joking that actors don’t age as quickly as heroin addicts do, over the course of the two decades it has taken for it to get made) and it’s a potent follow-up. Returning to Edinburgh after learning he has a coronary disorder, Mark soon falls in with Spud (Ewen Bremner) and Simon again, and is chilled to discover that a vengeful Begbie has recently escaped from prison too. The past is a foreign country, literally for Mark, who has cleaned up his act and has been living in Amsterdam since abandoning his friends and fleecing Simon and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) out of their share of a £16,000 robbery. This neatly sums up the theme, and perhaps also the fear, that drives T2 Trainspotting, a film in which our older (but hardly wiser) protagonists are still chasing a past high, in one way or another. In the middle of Danny Boyle’s belated sequel to Trainspotting, Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) scolds Mark (Ewan McGregor) about his remembrance of old times. Watch Trainspotting 2 online in the UK: Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / Apple TV (iTunes) / TalkTalk TV / Google Play Cast: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |