From Guy Lodge‘s T2: Trainspotting review, posted on 2.2.17: “How do you make a sequel to a film that defined a generation, a whole generation later? Do you define that generation anew, through thicker bifocal lenses, or do you pass the baton to a younger one? Both are valid approaches.

“Neither is quite the one taken by T2 Trainspotting, a shinily distracting but disappointingly unambitious follow-up to 1996’s feverish youthquake of a junkie study, which reunites its quartet of older, none-the-wiser Edinburgh wretches to say simply this: Middle-aged masculinity is a drag, whether you’re on smack or off it.

“As a fan-service exercise, Danny Boyle’s itchy, antic caper just about passes muster, reassembling Trainspotting‘s core ensemble, soundtrack cues, and even its seasick camera moves for two hours of scuzzy nostalgia. Yet it largely passes up the opportunity to update the original’s caustic social snapshot of contemporary Britain — a region itself currently preoccupied with the rearview mirror, though the irony isn’t necessarily noted.”