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Trainspotting [2017]
Screenplay John Hodge
Based on ‘Porno’ and ‘Trainspotting’ by Irvine Welsh
Director Danny Boyle
Cinematography Anthony Dod Mantle
Music Rick
Smith
Leads Ewan
McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Anjela Nedyalkova,
Kelly Macdonald, Shirley Henderson, James Cosmo
Production Film4, Creative Scotland, Cloud Eight Films, DNA
Films, Decibel Films
IMDb 7.2/10
Rotten Tomatoes 79%
What
a let-down. I think the critics have been kind just because it’s Danny Boyle,
Ewan McGregor and Trainspotting. The original film was so extraordinary and
fresh, trippy and yet real, that it had audiences and critics alike gushing
over it. It is a film that needed no sequel. I am tempted to just review the
original and ignore this film – which is essentially just a reminder of the
first film anyway – filled with flashbacks and references that we don’t really
need. You can tell that Boyle and McGregor are now Hollywood bigshots as they
spray their scents all over this in making a film that is way more PG than the
original and much closer to the tracks (had to get a train pun in somewhere). We
re-join the gang twenty years later as Renton (McGregor) returns to Edinburgh after
a minor heart attack. He is in search of nostalgia, as all of us probably were
whilst watching it. They certainly gave it to us but not in the right way. This
film seemed to be about middle age hopelessness and revenge, rather than the
nihilism of youth and addiction that the original gave us. The plot was boring,
bogged down in reverie towards the original and the characters former lives.
Spud’s (Bremner) plotline gave me the only glimmer of hope as we saw him go
cold turkey and start writing, his building the sauna an allegory for re-building
his life. I think it all came down to them trying to do too much: remembering
the past whilst also bringing in a new story and modern themes. It was filmed
in a similar way, the freeze frames, awkward angles and super-8 all came into
it accompanied well by the dreamlike synth-filled music. There was so much
potential for the British film we all needed, from a brilliant director with a
brilliant cast, but it fell flat on its face. In the mixer with all the other
shitty generic films. Watch the first one and make yourself feel better.
Acting 3 / 4
Writing 2 / 4
Cinematography 2.5 / 4
Music 3.5 / 4
HWF rating 2 / 4
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