In case you’re wondering how “Trainspotting” holds up twenty years later, having watched it again on the big screen this week, I can tell you that Danny Boyle‘s picture is just as electric now as it was then. His tale of junkies, dreams, friendship, and coming-of-age is still quite the shot in the arm, disarmingly funny, and dramatically dark. Seeing it again was a reminder of just how high a bar “T2: Trainspotting” has to clear. The good news is that so far it looks like Boyle and co. have hit all the right notes, and this new international trailer offers some fresh footage that crucially brings one of the bigger questions regarding the story back into view.
Indeed, the end of “Trainspotting” hinges on a major betrayal, with Renton stealing the £16,000 from the drug deal that he was supposed to split with Begbie, Sick Boy, and Spud (though he did leave them a few thousand out of pity). Now, returning twenty years later, that knife in the back hasn’t been forgotten, and the faces may have aged, but the personalities are still largely the same. Will Renton choose a different path this time? We’ll see.
“T2: Trainspotting” opens in the UK on January 27, 2017, and will arrive in cinemas stateside on February 3, 2017 in limited release, before going wide on February 10, 2017.