I enjoyed the original immensely, as did most people, and I read Porno, the sequel to Trainspotting (the novel). While this film is supposedly “loosely based” on Porno, or at least it started out to be, the film that was made has very little to do with the plot of the book, besides starring the same characters, mostly. Of course it is in the unfortunate position of being the sequel to an all-time great film that it could never, ever live up to, and I went into it fully aware of this.
While I did enjoy this movie, it is definitely not a film that stands on its own; this is very much a film-length epilogue to Trainspotting. Feels like it from the very beginning, and still does when the credits roll. It was expectedly chock-full of references to the previous film, and there’s even a decent kind-of plot twist, involving all those crazy stories from the old days, and while those moments were what made the movie so enjoyable, it’s also what prevents it from standing on its own. I suppose a viewer who had not seen the original film would still be able to follow the story, but I can’t imagine most of the movie would have much impact; so much of what occurs in the sequel is dependent on the viewer understanding the depth and nature of the relationships between these characters.
Anyways, anyone else caught this? What did you think?
I saw it in the theater a couple of months ago and liked it quite a bit. I have to admit that I’d never seen the original, partly because I’d heard about the toilet-diving scene and was afraid to. So I rented the original film before seeing this one and liked the original as well. I think, though, I prefer the new film.
It was OK, a meditation on middle-age, really. It was good to see Spud again - the only sympathetic character - the rest of them still the same wankers they always were, just older.
It’s a better film than one made more closely to the plot of Porno would have been. Irvine Welsh descended into grotesque self-parody pretty quickly after Trainspotting. Trainspotting is a collection of related short stories really, and that’s a good format for him. There’s quite a few witty and inventive short stories in various collections. His full-length novels - save perhaps most of Maribou Stork Nightmares - are just so “Look at me, I’m being outrageous, Mum!”.
Anyone else feel like that whole “Choose life” screed in the middle was, I don’t know, unnecessary? I know that idea, and the cynical, sarcastic manner in which it is presented is at the foundation of the plot for both films, but it was just kind of-- odd. It seemed like the filmmakers felt it was obligatory when it really was not.
Completely. Really felt shoe-horned in for the sake of it.
I enjoyed it, but it really stretched nostalgia for the original to the limit. The whole re-visiting of the pint-glass-over-the-balcony from the first film, for example.
There was one plot hole which really, really bugged me too.
Begbie escapes from prison, via hospital. And then just moves in with his wife and son. And the police don’t look for him there? Really?
However, the whole scene in the Orange Lodge/Loyalist club was worth the price of admission alone. Maybe you have to live in Scotland and know people like that - but I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much at a film.
I noticed that as well. Maybe they were going for a “they’d never look here, it’s the obvious place!”-type thing, but real police don’t work like that. They always go to the obvious places first, because they know that people really are that stupid.
I liked most of the callbacks to the first film because I felt like, at its heart, this was a movie about how unbearable the weight of the past can sometimes be. It was only when they felt the need to give us ANOTHER scene of Renton laughing maniacally as he leaned over the hood of a car that I started to feel like the director was mirthlessly checking off a list of scenes to refer back to.