Mixed reviews for Trainspotting 2

We’ve waited more than 20 years to see Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie back and in the wild, but is Danny Boyle’s sequel to 1996 cult classic ‘Trainspotting’ any cop?

Well, yes and no. ‘T2: Trainspotting’, as it’s been clunkily entitled, has alighted to decidedly mixed reviews.

Taking on the events from Irvine Welsh’s sequel novel ‘Porno’, it finds a vengeful Begbie newly released from prison, Sick Boy running a pub in Leith, and Renton back from Amsterdam to help fund Sick Boy’s new venture into the pornography business.

With Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner all reprising their roles from the first movie, there’s a lot of nostalgia to satisfy.

But Neil Young in The Hollywood Reporter has called it ‘long-awaited, much-delayed and disappointingly redundant’.

“Welsh’s literary creations move in a scatological realm of ickily spilt bodily fluids; in such terms the film can perhaps be compared to an eager-to-please dog who knows only old tricks, contentedly licking up his own vomit,” he adds.

Jason Solomons for The Wrap says: “In places, it’s terrific, but it too often drags in a pool of its own despondency, a miserable and melancholy movie that almost looks a bit embarrassed to be so.”

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian is more upbeat, however, writing: “It has the same punchy energy, the same defiant pessimism, and there’s nothing around like this. This sequel was a high-wire act, but Boyle has made it to the other side.”

Empire, giving it a middling three stars, says: “The Prodigy remix of Iggy’s Pop ‘Lust For Life’ in some senses sums the film up. It rides along similar lines but it is just not quite as good.”

Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent loved it, however, giving it a full five stars, and writing: “It will be intriguing to see how T2 registers with a younger audience who don’t know the original film and aren’t aware of all the cultural references thrown into the mix here. Older viewers, though, are likely to be delighted with a sequel which matches its predecessor both in its zest and in its emotional kick.”

Wendy Ide in Screen International adds: “Although there are plenty of moments of savage humour, the highs are just not quite so high any more. There’s a melancholy maturity, however, which is satisfying in its own way.”

It’s due out across the UK on January 27.

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