• Home
  • Meetings
  • Events
  • Blog
  • E-Board
  • Around Boston
  • Join
Northeastern University's Film Enthusiasts Club
.

AJ Martin on T2 Trainspotting

3/24/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
I have never seen the original Trainspotting film and, if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t even really know what it was about when I stepped into the T2 Trainspotting screening. I hadn’t seen a single scene from the original film, never seen a movie by director Danny Boyle and hadn’t even seen the trailer to T2. It may be the blindest I have ever walked into a film, which actually gave me a level of curiosity toward the movie that I seldom get to experience because of my own, self-inflicted over-saturation of film content. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed the film so much, as I was extremely pleasantly surprised by something that I went into as fresh and blind as feasibly possible.
​
T2 Trainspotting is the 20 years later sequel to the sort-of cult classic original film, which followed four heroin addict friends through their debaucherous lives in Edinburgh and London.  T2 shows where these characters have ended up in the modern day, each of them still somewhat roped in to their lives of the past. Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to Edinburgh to return the money that he stole from his friends 20 years ago. Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) has moved from heroin to cocaine, blackmailing rich people into getting more money for more powder. Daniel (Ewen Bremner) is still an addict, clinging on to his sad, old life with little hope left. Franco (Robert Carlyle) has been in prison for the past 20 years, and busts out to continue his thieving life. As the four men cross paths once again, they start to fall back into the lives that screwed them up in the first place.

T2 truly shines in the way that it carries out these characters' stories and intertwines them into the mess that they call their relationships and lives together. And a lot of what makes the story-telling so great is the movie's almost visceral style. The film practically drips with funky visuals that kind of make the audience feel as high as the main characters. The editing and camera work tell the story as well as the actual dialogue, taking us through the main characters' head spaces and helping the audience understand what each of them is going through. This movie has too many cool shots and cinematographic moments to count, and it is the focal point of the film’s quality.

The characters and dialogue are intriguing as well, following these extremely flawed but somehow still loveable junkie-criminals as they try to reclaim their old lives. The four leads all do an excellent job as their respective roles, each of them bringing a different type of manic energy to their characters. The only major issue I had here (and I blame my dumb, American ears for this) is that I occasionally had a difficult time understating the dialogue through the thick Scottish accents. Sometimes the movie help you out on this front, using stylish subtitles to help less acclimated audience members understand what the hell some of the characters (mostly Franco) are saying.

T2 is an excellent piece of filmmaking, and one of the most interesting looking movies I have seen in a long time. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t love overly stylized camerawork and visuals and prefers a lot of very straight-forward storytelling, this probably isn’t for you. But, in my mind, this was a welcome change in a sea of similarity. 

Grade: A-
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    AJ Martin
    Andy Robinson
    Anime
    Anthony Formicola
    Anu Gulati
    Arjun Agarwal
    Arzu Martinez
    Ben Garbow
    Brandon Isaacson
    Brian Hamilton
    Carter Sigl
    Dan Simeone
    Discussion
    Elizabeth Johnson Wilson
    Eliza Rosenberry
    Emily Fisler
    Erick Sanchez
    Eric Tatar
    Essays
    Festivals
    Gabrielle Ulubay
    Haley Emerson
    Here's Some Movies
    Ian Wolff
    IFF Boston
    IFFBoston 2015
    Interviews
    Isaac Feldberg
    Kunal Asarsa
    Library
    Lists
    Marguerite Darcy
    Marissa Marchese
    Mary Tobin
    Meghan Murphy
    Mike Muse
    Mitch Macro
    Neel Shah
    Netflix Instant Watch
    Parth Parekh
    Patrick Roos
    Profiles
    Reviews
    Short Films
    Television
    This Week In Movies
    Tyler Rosini

    Want to Write for Us?

    Contact NUFEC President Ian Wolff at nufecblog@gmail.com if you're interested in writing for this blog!

    Archives

    April 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    October 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.