T2 Trainspotting (18)
Directed by Danny Boyle
3/5

TWENTY years have passed and the original gang are back for this middle-aged sequel to the cult classic — and what some have dubbed the generation-defining — Trainspotting.

T1 vividly captured the youth culture and political temperature of the late ’90s and it’s certainly a hard act to follow but T2 manages to embody the soul and the spirit of the original while once again exploring the political climate and issues such as Scottish identity and a disaffected youth.

Two decades on, little has changed.

Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) has returned home to Edinburgh after leading a settled life in Amsterdam to make amends for his betrayal of his old friends Spud (Ewen Bremner), back on the drugs after losing his job and family, and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), on coke and running a blackmailing racket with the help of his Bulgarian hooker girlfriend Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova).

To compound matters, Renton is avoiding the psychopathic Begbie (a deliciously frightening Robert Carlyle) who’s escaped from prison.

Based loosely on Irvine Welsh’s Porno, T2 reunites screenwriter John Hodge, director Danny Boyle and the original cast. The latter are on charming form although Kevin McKidd, for obvious reasons, only appears in flashback as the young Tommy while Kelly Macdonald and Shirley Henderson are so underused that if you blink you’ll miss them.

Despite T2 lacking the freshness and subversive thrill of the original, as a nostalgic ride it incorporates more nods to, and clips from, the first film than expected.

Sick Boy warns Renton: “You’re a tourist in your own youth” and that just about sums up T2 as these middle-aged characters, older but not wiser, recall their misspent youth, missed opportunities and shattered dreams.

It’s great fun and leaves the legacy of Trainspotting untarnished.

Yet, despite its strengths, I can’t help but feel that this is an unnecessary postscript.