T2 Trainspotting

The danger.

The danger of returning 20 odd years later to material which you expertly orchestrated with fertile frenzied finesse in your youth, fans will undoubtedly be expecting equivalent degrees of athletic anguish and bricked portered benzedrine, agonizing adrenaline, hysterical heuristic harkenings, even if they've aged meanwhile, even if the characters have as well.

Godfather III, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Everybody Wants Some!!

Star Wars Episodes I-III.

But the impulse to buck the trend must be overwhelming, to revisit old storylines, to reimagine old characters, and revitalize them alma mater.

T2 Trainspotting starts out on a depressing note.

Renton's (Ewan McGregor/Connor McIndoe/Ben Skelton) inspiring speech from the final moments of T1 hasn't exactly widgeted bourgeois effervescence, and he's downtroddenly returned home to reestablish old friendships.

The bourgeoisie has experienced sincere difficulties for the last twenty years so it isn't surprising that he's had a tough go of it.

Grievances are aired and there's a rapprochement of sorts, although Begbie (Robert Carlyle/Christopher Mullen/Daniel Smith) remains extremely hostile, and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller/James McElvar/Logan Gillies) duplicitously presides.

The characters are tetrarchically divided with Renton and Spud (Ewen Bremner/Aiden Haggarty/John Bell) making up one half, Sick Boy and Begbie the other.

Spud is loveable and tragic and incapable of smoothly navigating occupational domains due to years of drug abuse, but Renton is there to help him settle down and remember the sundry positive aspects of life existing beyond narcotic addiction.

Renton and Sick Boy meet in the middle, as mutual love interest Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) hilariously relates in one of the film's many lively observations, but Sick Boy got the bad side of the Schwartz, and is still incorrigibly struggling.

Hence, he is better at grovelling when a local phenom (Bradley Welsh as Doyle) threatens their lives after learning that they plan to open a strip club.

His sleazy misdemeanours make him a better fit for Begbie, who escapes from prison and hides out with his frightened family (like the police wouldn't have looked there [Begbie's relationship with his son is one of the best aspects of T2]), and is just as unemployable as Spud although his joblessness is the product of excessive aggression as opposed to chillin' fireside.

Begbie is wicked, yet when he gets together with Spud a brilliant synthesis cinematically unreels, after the initial terror subsides, and the cold violent horrorshow actually considers something tender.

Like Stalin at a spontaneous unannounced small town parade wittingly kept in line with party guidelines.

Trainspotting 2 struggles early on to reestablish the narrative after so many bygone years, and there were points where I thought it should have been left alone, but, when I sit back to consider the preponderance of insightful claims and witty evaluations afterwards, not to mention its bold calculations and tantalizing cutlass, cutlasses, I have no choice but to admit that my misgivings were premature, and that I did indeed enjoy the film, although I'm not buying the soundtrack this time.

Thoughtful depth is patiently added to the four main characters in a way that aptly reflects the trials they've experienced surviving for the past twenty years.

It's grittier than an everything-worked-out tale and more subdued like middle-age.

Jaded and scorned yet cheerfully torn.

Cynical yet aspiring.

Boyle's still got it.

As do David Lynch and Mark Frost.