OK so Trainspotting 2 wasn’t a comic book movie adaptation. But if you’re willing to overlook the fact that it was the product of the author Irvine Welsh’s imagination rather than the studios of Marvel and DC Comics, you could be in for a real movie treat.
Trainspotting 2 was released earlier this year, and it followed up the original Trainspotting movie that was a huge cult hit in the 1990s. The films focus on a bunch of lowlife characters in Scotland who try and escape their dismal lives through crime, drugs and all manner of unsavory activities.
Whilst this sounds like it should be a pretty harrowing viewing experience, what made the original Trainspotting movie work was a hilarious script, a nicely political undertone, and an awesome soundtrack.
So hopes were high that this year’s Trainspotting revamp wouldn’t lose the incredible energy that made the original such a critical and commercial success.
Although the core cast-members of Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller have definitely aged a bit, Trainspotting 2 earned some great reviews as it stayed true to the gritty humor that was such a big part of the original 1996 movie.
Whilst Lucky Nugget Casino’s blog post on the original Trainspotting movie shows how 1996 was a very different time to now, it’s been good to see how the revamp has lost none of its volatile charm.
It’s definitely a refreshing antidote to some of the blander movies that we’ve seen recently. And the presence of anti-heroes like Spud, Sickboy and Begbie are definitely some of the most colorful characters that have appeared on our cinema screens in recent years.
Whilst the revamp of Sin City struggled to match the firepower of the original, a big reason as to why the Danny Boyle-directed Trainspotting 2 succeeds is that a large part of it was based on Irvine Welsh’s book Porno that revealed that the author has lost none of his ability to find humor in even the darkest of circumstances.
And unlike many comic book movies that invariably focus on muscular and youthful heroes, it’s great to see how Trainspotting 2 features characters who are ageing in ways that are definitely the opposite of what we’d expect of ‘growing old gracefully’.
With Begbie as ultra-violent as ever, and Renton exemplifying the male mid-life crisis with a typical amount of self-loathing, it’s a movie that’s funny and thought-provoking in equal measure.
And whilst it might not offer the escapist pleasures of the latest Marvel hit or a night out in one of Canada’s casinos, it shows that Trainspotting 2 is one of the best cinematic revamps of recent years.
