T2 Trainspotting
TriStar Pictures | Release Date: March 17, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
16
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 28, 2017
Like its predecessor T2 Trainspotting aggressively shocks and charms, a singular example of cinematic bravura now improbably duplicated. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 23, 2017
T2 is a sequel that is at least the equal of the revered original. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 23, 2017
No, T2 is not a great film, but its pleasures are great — and so rare and accomplished that they raise T2 to a level approximating greatness. There is something to be said for a movie this enjoyable. T2 is great enough. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 23, 2017
T2 Trainspotting has one foot firmly planted in nostalgia and the other rooted in the present, and thanks in great part to Boyle’s unique, world-class talent, everything old feels new again, and everything new has the blazing look of an original and blazing piece of art. Read full review
83
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerMar 20, 2017
In one sense, here’s a sequel to a ‘90s classic that trades heavily on audiences’ appreciation for that previous film. In another, here’s a film that uses that fact in service of an insightful, affecting commentary on how there’s no choice in life but to either move forward or to not. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisMar 16, 2017
Playing with memory — the characters’ and our own — allows Mr. Boyle and his cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle, to conjure some of the movie’s loveliest, most melancholy images. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 15, 2017
An equal-opportunity energizer, director Boyle adds zip to everything he touches, and his familiarity with the material and the characters makes it easier for him to bring even the unlikeliest moments to full life. In the world of sequels, that counts for a lot. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatt GlasbyJan 23, 2017
Wiser, sadder but very much alive and kicking, T2 is a film that knows you can’t compete with the ghosts of the past. But at least you can dance with them. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounJan 19, 2017
Like the original, T2 Trainspotting is a winning mix of low living and high jinx, a stylized spin on real life. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 19, 2017
Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting is everything I could reasonably have hoped for - scary, funny, desperately sad, with many a bold visual flourish. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 23, 2017
Its virtuosity, wit, fleet performances and cool self-awareness notwithstanding, T2 doesn’t feel like a necessary film as much as a respectful and respectable exercise in fan service. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorMar 16, 2017
The lads from Edinburgh thrive in chaos and, for all their new-found maturity, they are still at their best when in full flight from both responsibility and time. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 16, 2017
This Trainspotting sequel may feel like that for many who raised a fist in unison with the first film's f--k-the-world defiance. There's a hard-won wisdom at work here, as well as an aching sense of loss. Any way you look at it, T2 takes a piece out of you. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMar 16, 2017
The good news is that the film’s four lead actors all slip seamlessly back into their onscreen alter egos as if they’ve been keeping tabs on them all these years. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 16, 2017
Considerably less ambitious or provocative than Boyle’s barnstorming first crack at these characters, T2 Trainspotting (can we please just call it “T2″?) is an enjoyable nostalgia trip about the extraordinary headache of trying to go home again. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 19, 2017
It doesn’t have the youthful kick of its predecessor, but given the pervasiveness of addiction and suicidal ideation and despair it’s amazingly buoyant. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 16, 2017
T2 squeaks by on the charm of its actors, all of whom still look pretty damn good -- especially McGregor, who remains a charismatic wag. Read full review
70
SlateJune ThomasMar 16, 2017
A delicious plot twist is ginned up to serve as the film’s clever climax, but I was more interested in the relationship drama. For those of us who have survived our own rollercoaster friendships, T2’s trip is far more intense than Trainspotting’s youthful highs. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Mar 16, 2017
Sequels are tricky things, and decades-late followups are the trickiest. T2 Trainspotting almost pulls it off, too, bringing back the original’s hallucinatory style, jolting musical choices and charismatic cast. Read full review
70
Screen DailyWendy IdeJan 19, 2017
The tonal shift in the sequel compared to the original means that, although there are plenty of moments of savage humour, the highs are just not quite so high any more. There’s a melancholy maturity, however, which is satisfying in its own way. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovMar 22, 2017
No one is having any fun here, despite the return of Iggy Pop on the soundtrack; T2 is rife with regret, melancholy, lost youth, and (of course) a new, nihilistically updated “choose life” speech from Renton. Read full review
67
The Film StageEd FranklFeb 15, 2017
Boyle’s verve as a director means there’s still plenty of vibrant imagery, alongside a script that, although lacking any of the electricity of the original’s state-of-the-nation wisecracks (“Scotland is a nation colonized by wankers”), is funny and disarmingly melancholic. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 3, 2017
It is a story of a reckoning — several reckonings — that is afraid of actually wrestling with the consequences of betrayal and self-abuse, of letting its characters naturally mellow or die because they can’t. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMar 30, 2017
The movie is at its best when it flirts with becoming a meta-sequel — a film whose characters know they’ve been in a movie called “Trainspotting.” Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 25, 2017
Nothing in T2 is memorable. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 23, 2017
T2 Trainspotting wears out its welcome slowly, like a group of old men running out of stories to tell in an afternoon pub. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 23, 2017
It’s as if Boyle is saying he isn’t afraid to visit the past. And he does it about as successfully as one could — T2 is a movie worth seeing and enjoying if you’ve seen the first film (less so if you haven’t). What he’s not as successful at is telling us why. Read full review
60
VarietyGuy LodgeFeb 2, 2017
Where “Trainspotting’s” dive into the void was targeted, bristling with snarky anger at a Conservative system that provided few lifelines, “T2” — despite landing in a Britain once more under divisive Tory rule — is mostly content to let its characters alternately indulge and excoriate themselves. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredDavid JamesJan 27, 2017
Danny Boyle's T2 Trainspotting is a diverting nostalgia exercise, to be sure, but it never really justifies its own existence. Read full review
60
CineVueJamie NeishJan 27, 2017
Boyle has made an admirable effort that captures the melancholy of being right back to where you started from. But it's not what it used to be - or what it could have been. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerJan 19, 2017
In some senses T2 shares elements with its Terminator namesake. It’s inventive and full of surprises. But unlike Cameron’s sequel, it doesn’t reimagine the original in quite the same glorious way. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJan 19, 2017
Like the original, T2 is happy enough spending time with its characters whatever they get up to. Very little that happens in the film seems to affect where it’s going, and the few things that do feel dashed off, almost as an afterthought. It’s also littered with callbacks to the first film – some as stirring as they are subtle, others exasperatingly cute. Read full review
60
TheWrapJason SolomonsJan 19, 2017
T2 Trainspotting isn’t a bad film at all. In places, it’s terrific, but it too often drags in a pool of its own despondency, a miserable and melancholy movie that almost looks a bit embarrassed to be so. Read full review
58
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonJan 19, 2017
It ends up feeling like going to a festival headlining date by a reunited Britpop band. It’s great to see them back together, they look pretty good for their age, and there are transcendent moments when they play the hits. But the set goes on a bit long, and the new material’s a bit forgettable, and they’re sloppier than they used to be, and in the end, you start to wonder if it had been better if you’d been left with your memories from back in the day. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 20, 2017
T2 cannot hope to break the mold, as “Trainspotting” did, but Boyle and his cast rifle eagerly through the shards: a motley of plot scraps, crazed camera angles, flashbacks, trips, sight gags, and musical yelps. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireMar 16, 2017
If you long for the gritty charms of mid-‘90s indie cinema in general and “Trainspotting” specifically, T2 Trainspotting gives you exactly that. And by “exactly,” we really do mean “exactly.” Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithMar 16, 2017
Yes, we remember one of the best movies of the 1990s, but the sequel is like the moment at the party when someone raises the shades and you realize that it’s blinding broad daylight, well past time to go home. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyMar 15, 2017
It teeters on the edge of relapse, aimless and at a loss as to how it can motivate its returning ensemble of former and current lowlifes, who only ever needed one thing to get them from scene to scene. Read full review
50
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneyMar 15, 2017
This derivative sequel might please devoted fans looking for a quick fix of nostalgia, but with nothing new to say, it seems not even Boyle and his cast are sure why T2 Trainspotting exists. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayMar 15, 2017
The heart of T2 lies in the relationship between Renton and Sick Boy, but their rocky reunion is another victim both to the wheel-spinning innate in Hodge’s script and Boyle’s relative lack of fresh ideas. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMike LawsMar 11, 2017
It's as if the filmmakers recognized the wanness of the material and settled on a strategy of padding it out with empty high style on the one hand and clever meta awareness on the other. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterNeil YoungJan 19, 2017
A missed opportunity on multiple levels, T2 is stylistically an overwrought rehash which relies heavily on over-caffeinated camerawork and flashy effects (cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle's trademark gritty flair is overwhelmed by a flurry of Dutch angles and freeze-frames) to distract us from its essential paucity of raison d'etre. Read full review
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