T2 - no not that "T2", Trainspotting 2

Is there nothing left that can't be set aside from a film studio's obsession with making money?  It seems not.  The latest (well - 2 months ago now nearly) classic cult film to get the remake / revision / re-imagining / sequel treatment is Trainspotting.  Sigh.  Anyway, the studio know people like me are going to go and see it, if only just to check if it's terrible.  That's why they make films like this.  One of these days I'll stop dancing to their tune.

The new Trainspotting - T2 - is set 20 years after the original.  Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) has been living in Amsterdam since the events of the original and for reasons has to return to Edinburgh.  Cue a story about getting old, being old, and trying to work out what it is that went wrong.

The thing to remember about Trainspotting is that its place in the annals of British film came from two different angles.  Firstly, it documented a time and a place in British culture.  If you were in your late teens / early 20s in the mid 1990s and you wanted nothing to do with 'Cool Britania' and 'Blair's Babes', then you existed on the fringes of popular culture.  These were the fringes that Trainspotting did so well to record for posterity.  Secondly it brought Danny Boyle into the mainstream.  His eclectic and energetic style of direction is still copied by film-makers to this day.

I am not interested in nostalgiac wanders down memory lane.  I do not want to see parodies of scenes from an original film.  I don't want to watch Frances Begbie (Robert Carlyle) reprise his famous taunting of a crowded bar.  I don't want to hear Mark Renton update his "Choose life..." monologue for the 21st century.  I don't want to see callbacks to scenes that tick fanboy-boxes.  Enough of that goes on in the endless remakes and soft reboots spewing out of Holywood (Star Wars, Star Trek, Superman, Ghostbusters, Spiderman - they're all at it).  The only reason to make another Trainspotting film is if there is a story worth telling.

Thankfully - and you will understand that this was a very big sigh of relief for me - Trainspotting 2 does have a story to tell.  Rather than offer just a montage of throwbacks to the original, or crave for the nostalgia of the mid-1990s, T2 is about ageing and choices - you know, those things we do every day of our lives.  It's about waking up and discovering that you're suddenly 40 years old when your mind still thinks it's 18.  It's about wondering where time and opportunities have gone.

The film doesn't completely eschew the desire to provide fanservice and nob vigorously towards the classic scenes of yesteryear.  Am updated "Choose Life..." monologue is a particular low-point.  As is Robert Carlisle delivering a reprise of Begbie's most famous of lines.  In Trainspotting Renton's monologue broke the 4th wall - he was talking to us.  It shouldn't exist in the universe of the film.  Begbie's blood-soaked fight in the bar was portrayed as par-for-the-course event back in the day.  Why would this particular fight be memorable enough for him to remember it 20 years later?  We remember it because we watched Trainspotting.  There is no reason Begbie would attach any specific significance to that particular time he started one of many brawls.  These scenes shouldn't be in there, however they fact that they are short and noticeable by their contrast to the rest of the film is a positive.  These minor moments of fan-services I can abide - but I still cringed a little inside.

Given that they decided to make this film, I will admit that it was much better than I could have hoped or expected.  Minor criticisms aside, it tells a new story, largely avoids fan service and is rather touching.  British film fans of the 1990s can rest easy, and with luck Danny Boyle can now go off and create something new.