Five Things We Learnt From The Trainspotting 2 Trailer

Twenty years ago, British director Danny Boyle adapted Irvine Welsh’s darkly comic portrait of heroin addiction in ‘80s Scotland for the screen, and a cult classic was born. More "fucks", "cunts", "shits" and numerous other swears than you could shake a stick at, a masterful soundtrack that had people all over the world chanting “Lager, Lager, Lager”, and numerous unforgettable (and at times, wincingly scatological) moments that made us forever terrified of rank pub toilets, angry Scotsmen and fever dream zombie babies, helped to propel the 1996 masterpiece Trainspotting to cinematic infamy. Now, Boyle is back with a sequel.
 

Simply titled Trainspotting 2 (instead of using the title of Welsh’s follow-up novel, Porno) the first full-length trailer has revealed some tantalising glimpses of what to expect.

1. The whole gang is back

Mark “Rent Boy” Renton (Ewan McGregor), Daniel “Spud” Murphy (Ewen Bremner), Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson (Johnny Lee Miller) and Francis “Franco” Begbie (Robert Carlyle) all return, as well as school girl rebel Diane Coulston (Kelly Macdonald), albeit now all grown up and seemingly successful. Despite their junkie pasts, they’re all looking in pretty good nick, two decades on.

2.  Expect more sage voiceovers from Rent Boy, with added 21st-Century tweaks

The iconic “choose life” speech was by far the most powerful dialogue from the original film, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that an updated version is front and centre of the trailer. “Choose Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and hope that someone, somewhere cares.” BOOM!

3.  Boyle has upped the ante and then some in his metaphors for addiction

In the first film, Boyle came up with some jaw-dropping ways of communicating the distorted reality of an addict, including a horrifying dead baby with a swivelling head crawling across a ceiling! Even in the meagre two minutes of the sequel revealed so far, Boyle has taken this to the next level, with Spud falling from the top of a tower block easily standing out.

4.  Drugs aren’t the only addiction this film explores

The first film, while wildly popular, depicted a world that few of us have experienced first hand. The sequel novel brings sex as an addiction into play, but it seems Boyle is using the sequel to also make some pointed observations of our present day obsession with social media and the innate self-centeredness this inspires. “You’re an addict. So be addicted – just be addicted to something else.” Tru dat bro…

5.  Expect a more high-octane pace than the original

Trailers are cut together to be frenetic and pacy, so this might be a red herring, but this first glimpse at Trainspotting 2 has a slightly Guy Ritchie circa Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels vibe in places. Some kind of heist or organised crime gambit seems to play a pivotal role in the plot. In Welsh’s book, the gang come together to make a porn film, and while some explicitly erotic moments do feature in the trailer, there are some suggestions that the film may deviate from the book’s narrative.

Trainspotting 2 is released in cinemas 9 Feb.