Written by: John Hodge
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald
Rating: [3.5/5]
Repairing harm previously caused comes as part of a two-way deal where the one who caused the issue must properly make reparations and the one harmed accepts it if they feel inclined to. Doing this with everyday individuals comes with its process, but when involving the rascals we experience in T2 Trainspotting, it gets much more complicated and unsurprisingly violent.
20 years after taking their collective stash of money and fleeing, Mark “Rent Boy” Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to Scotland where he knows he must reckon with what he did and how it impacted the lives of Daniel “Spud” Murphy (Ewen Bremner), Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller), and Francis “Franco” Begbie (Robert Carlyle). While back he also reconnects with his remaining connections after being away for so long.
Coming back to the disgusting world of Trainspotting is never something I will turn down because of the hilarious and horrifying circumstances these characters put themselves in leaving us with the joy of trying to decipher exactly how they will try and get out of it. With the feature taking place 20 years later in accordance with the difference of years between the filming of the two films, we get the opportunity to see what these individuals have done over the last two decades. Unsurprisingly, things did not go too well for many of them with us finding Franco in prison, Spud back on drugs, and Sick Boy continuing to have these schemes to make money. Mark returns and lives the most normal life, but we need to get to the root of why for the first time he’s returning to Scotland, especially with the risk this presents.
With each interaction he has with someone from his past, Mark gets reintegrated into their lives and when it comes to the trio of men he betrayed, he must attempt to explain himself. Based on what we know of each of these characters, we can reasonably infer how they will react to Mark re-entering their lives, and at the start, he can consider himself lucky Franco sits behind bars. Their reconnection also shows where these individuals stand in relation to the thesis of the first feature and if they managed to live the normal rat-on-a-wheel life they so desperately wanted to avoid in their youth but they, of course, no longer have the same zeal as before, which demonstrates the reality of life. Being a rebel and against what it means to function as an adult in the world has some charm when young but once one reaches their 40s, it proves a bit sad in all reality. We see that with each of these characters, which serves as one of the better reasons why we could justify a return to this world.
When it comes to the filmmaking on display in this feature, it certainly displays a smoother experience overall. The feature does not come with the erratic editing and narration by Mark to guide us through, which adds some uniqueness to what the feature presents to us. It coincides with the age of these men and the perspective Mark now holds as opposed to when he lived a much more frantic lifestyle. He’s not running into disgusting stalls to pull something out of a feces-riddled bowl of toilet water. This feature turned all of that down, which makes sense even if it makes for not as entertaining a journey to follow along. As one can expect, this feature exhibits these individuals getting into shenanigans and they certainly get the job done as what we expect from these men. Especially when looking at Sick Boy, you just know something not only illicit will be involved but incredibly stupid as well.
Certainly, a step down from its predecessor but a wild ride worth taking because we get to spend more time in this subsection of Scotland with these characters, T2 Trainspotting just gets the job done. We see what these individuals have done in the last 20 years and how the flame of their youth gets extinguished by the realities of what life brings forth to them. A fitting conclusion to the story of these four men and the total arc of what their journeys in life represent.
Films with Josh 
