T2: Trainspotting [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray]

Director: Danny Boyle Danny Boyle

Overview

This sequel to the seminal '90s indie smash Trainspotting catches up with its quartet of Scottish junkies 20 years later. Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) finally returns to Edinburgh after a long exile in Amsterdam, and he soon reunites with his old pals Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and Spud (Ewen Bremner). As he tries to help Spud kick his heroin addiction and gets caught up in a scheme to open a brothel with Sick Boy, Renton is targeted by the sociopathic Begbie (Robert Carlyle), who wants revenge for his past misdeeds. Danny Boyle directed this follow-up, which is partly based on author Irvine Welsh's 2002 novel, Porno.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/27/2017
UPC:	0043396488694
Original Release:	2017
Rating:	R
Source:	SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMT
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00
Sales rank:	28,587

Special Features

Deleted Scenes; 20 Years in the Making: A Conversation with Danny Boyle and the Cast; Commentary with Director Danny Boyle and Writer John Hodge

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Ewan McGregor	Renton
Ewen Bremner	Spud
Jonny Lee Miller	Sick Boy
Robert Carlyle	Francis Begbie
Kelly Macdonald	Actor
Simon Weir	Jailhoose
Steven Robertson	Stoddart
John Kazek	Tom
Shirley Henderson	Gail
Anjela Nedyalkova	Veronika
Logan Gillies	Simon (Aged 9)
Ben Skelton	Renton (aged 9)
Aiden Haggarty	Spud (aged 9)
Elijah Wolf	Tommy (aged 9)
Charlie Hardie	Fergus (aged 9)
Scott Aitken	Farmer
Tereza Duskova	Tourism Girl
Elek Kish	Dozo
Lewis Gribben	Dealer
Dominic Maccoll	Dealer
Calum Verrecchia	Dealer
Bradley Welsh	Doyle,Mickey Forrester
James Cosmo	Renton's Father
Katie Leung	Nurse
Thierry Mabonga	Security Officer Wilson
Atta Yaqub	Medical Student
Christopher Douglas	Actor
Pauline Turner	June
Scot Greenan	Frank Junior
James McElvar	Simon (aged 20)
Connor McIndoe	Renton (aged 20)
Bryan Quinn	Actor
Ged Hanley	Social Club Band
Neil Thomson	Actor
Margaret Davies	Social Club Singer
Alex Jackson	Actor
Tom Urie	Big Bear
Phil Coppola	Boxing Instructor
Johnny Lee Miller	Actor
Danny Boyle	Actor
Gordon Kennedy	Tulloch
Daniel Smith	Begbie (aged 9),Composer

Technical Credits

John Hodge

Danny Boyle	Director,Producer,Director
John Hodge	Screenwriter
Christian Colson	Producer
Andrew Macdonald	Producer
Bernard Bellew	Producer
Irvine Welsh	Executive Producer,Producer
Allon Reich	Executive Producer,Producer
Glenn Freemantle	Sound/Sound Designer
Gail Stevens	Casting
Samar Pollitt	Production Manager
Claire Campbell	Production Manager
Julian Spencer	Stunts
Mike Kelt	Special Effects Supervisor
Niv Adiri	Sound Effects
Mark Appleby	Sound Effects
Linda Brenon	Sound Effects
Artem	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

No, the liquid metal T-1000 isn't in this sequel to the 1996 indie house hit about feckless junkie mates Renton (Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner) and their older, violent pal Begbie (Robert Carlyle), but it might have livened up the proceedings. It's hard to top the tasting-blood exhilaration of the original Trainspotting's opening scene, with Renton's tennies frantically pounding the Edinburgh pavement to Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" as they're being chased by the cops. Director Danny Boyle's back for this one, and the sequel's opening shot makes a witty parallel of Renton's feet pounding a treadmill in a comfortable gym, a new metaphor for running and running and never getting anywhere - that is, until Renton collapses and shoots across the carpet in cardiac, not criminal, arrest. The original movie made McGregor a star, and he's still a devil charmer here, despite the mileage made apparent by intercut clips of him as a baby-faced, model-lean beginner. He was never a great actor, but a tremendously likeable one gifted with the Jimmy Stewart knack of getting an audience to forgive him anything. That's fortunate, because Renton has a lot to be forgiven for, including betraying his comrades by absconding with the lion's share of a drug deal in order, presumably, to make a new, junk-free life possible for himself. That worked for a while, but now, back home in Scotland recovering from his heart attack, he catches up with Spud, who has reformed but recently hit a low ebb, and Sick Boy, who has not reformed in the least. Sick Boy's partnered with lissome Bulgarian prostitute Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) and the two of them are hatching a scheme to fund a superbrothel in his mum's old pub. Is Renton in? Of course he is, and there is one scene of a scheme so inspired it would be criminal for a critic to ruin the punchline, but the wit of that endeavor begs the question: If these characters are so infernally clever, why can't they apply any of that derring-do or know-how to anything other than ruining their lives? Veronika puts them to shame. She is full of Millennial can-do spirit, and Renton and Sick Boy and all their Gen-X learned helplessness can't ape her confidence, fueled as it is by growing up in a world where success is self-determined and painstakingly sustained one tweet at a time, not bestowed upon you by a powers-that-be. Their '90s junkie angst was a panacea against that narrow Internet-less cultural window where disempowered young people were struck by lassitude and despair. But these grunge-era refugees are now Dinosaur Sr., and when Renton launches into an update of his "Choose life" monologue (this time lamenting Instagram, 9/11 deniers, revenge porn and designer handbags), it's not a barbaric yawp, it's a Yelp, a one-star review of how the world has grown up without them. The original Trainspotting was a cautionary tale sugar-swathed in the delicious "heroin chic" delight of being young, decadent and still able to fit into 28-waist jeans. At 20 that behavior is Rimbaud romantic; at 40 it's a nuisance. Why won't filmmakers shrug off their "sequel-itis" and just let their iconic characters live their destinies without us anymore? Why must we revisit our heroes, whether it's Renton or Han Solo, decades after their last noble exit, only to be disappointed by how little they've changed and how much we have? Maybe it's the lack of Renton's narration this time that lets us see what a flat and passive character he is in comparison to Sick Boy and Spud and Begbie. (Oh yes, Begbie returns too, and be warned: one extended scene between him and Spud, the thickest-brogued of the bunch, is so absolutely unintelligible they might as well be speaking Latvian, or Xhosa, with the word "shite" replacing the tongue clicks.) At one point a character complains that Renton is "a tourist in his own youth," and that serves as a word to the wise for anyone considering watching this wan sequel instead of the still-stellar original. If you're going to choose life, choose a movie with some life in it.