Just had the thrill of seeing T2 on the first day of general release, here in Leith, where Porno is set, but not a lot of the film is shot here. I don’t like multi-plexes, but 40 years ago Henry Robb’s shipyard stood right where we were sitting in comfort watching the film. It’s all part of the legacy. Not that Danny Boyle makes anything of it, in T2. This is an update of the characters, not of Leith.
So – no spoilers. Go and see it yourself. It’s worth re-reading both Trainspotting and Porno, and watching the film Trainspotting again if you haven’t done so for a while. The more familiar you are, the more you get out of T2. There are some lovely reprises, flash-backs, inversions, and twists. And it’s funny and entertaining while having its moments of honesty and sadness. The music isn’t as compelling as I was expecting, and although it is clearly set in Edinburgh I’m not so sure it’s going to be easy to string together the locations to form a tour. But somebody will be working on that.
OK, I lost my little wager. I was expecting Sick Boy to have a fantasy conversationalist along the lines of Shir Sean in Trainspotting and Alex McLeish in Porno. I was hoping Boyle would be taking the mick out lf Alex Salmond. He doesn’t. For fuller details, see the film. But I was right in the big forecast: never under-estimate Danny Boyle’s creative genius. I think this is set to be another classic, riding the title that has become a catchphrase in common parlance for all it’s worth. And the central rap: Choose this, choose that… it’s not copyright, but in all other senses it belongs to Welsh and Boyle and, well OK, McGregor as well.
And by the way, just enjoy it. There’s a lot of comedy, and even some farce. But there are some real truths in there as well. And there’s a strong story. I worried that at 2 hours it might be paunchy and flabby, in contrast to the very tight pacey punchy 90 minutes of Trainspotting. But it isn’t. The intellectualisation and contextualising will come later. It’s good. Very good.