T2: Trainspotting

The series is based on Irvine Welsh’s novel ‘The Blade Artist.’

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There are a lot of freeze-frames in T2 Trainspotting. To an inattentive viewer, they might look like empty style for style’s sake, or a nod back to the flashy visuals and hyperkinetic editing of the original Trainspotting from 20 years ago. But the freeze-frames also turn the film’s subtext into text. T2 is about a group of immature men coming to grips with the fact that they are getting older. The freeze-frames — along with a steady stream of flashbacks — enable the film to do the very thing the characters wish they could do, but can’t: Stop the inexorable march of time, and even, for brief moments, turn back the clock to their youths.

It’s been 21 years since Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) decided to choose life. The young addict ran off with a bag full of drug money, screwed over his best friends, and kissed his junkie lifestyle goodbye at the end of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. In today’s sequel and reboot-obsessed studio system, it only makes sense to catch up with the Trainspotting gang in the present day and see how maturity has (or hasn’t) changed them. But just as any reunion among age-old friends will revolve entirely around the past, T2 Trainspotting is stuck reliving the glory days.

T2: Trainspotting is the surprise sequel that no one saw coming, but is welcome all the same. What have Mark, Spud, and the rest of the gang been up to for all these years? What kind of vibe will this movie have, now that they’ve all seemingly given up their drug-pushing ways and are committed to detoxing? According to all the trailers, this one no exception, four sober blokes can get up to just as much trouble now as they used to.