【Walker (2025)】

LONDON -- The Walker (2025)reviews of T2 Trainspottingwere always going to be a bit mixed.

Danny Boyle's original film is such an iconic piece of cinema that a sequel was always likely to divide people.

The good news, though, is that critics don't seem to be as divided as we might expect.

Firstly, there don't seem to be many bad reviews. All the ones we've highlighted below range from three to five stars, and even the three star ones have found plenty of positives to take away.

Robbie Collin, The Telegraph.

"The original Trainspotting-- T1, as we hopefully don’t now have to call it -- was released in the UK just a month shy of 21 years ago, and so infectious was its hyper-manic, proto-Cool-Britannic charge, it’s now impossible to work out whether it was a product of its time or if the time was a product of it. There’s no chance of its successor matching that legacy, but it won’t tarnish it either: though the film feeds on its forerunner, it’s worthwhile on its own terms."

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

"Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspottingis everything I could reasonably have hoped for – scary, funny, desperately sad, with many a bold visual flourish. What began as a zeitgeisty outlaw romp in the Uncool Britannia of the 1990s is now reborn as a scabrous and brutal black comedy about middle-aged male disappointment and fear of death."

Ian Freer, Empire.

"If the first film is really about the joy of being young -- the hedonism, the mistakes, the camaraderie -- T2is about the disappointments of growing old — the limitations, the regrets, the need for reconnection. The shared past of these friends is inextricably intertwined in their present and this where the poignancy of the film lives. Bravely Boyle has made a mostly sombre film about how 40something lives work out and it’s well observed and well-acted. Yet is this what you want from a Trainspottingfilm?"

Rosie Fletcher, Digital Spy.

"While it's an undeniably well-made movie, packed with visual gags, slo-mo, sharp cuts and cutaways trying to recreate the flair of the first film, and there are some laugh-out-loud gags as well as points of poignant tragi-comedy that director Danny Boyle is particularly good at, it can't ever quite reach the euphoric heights of the original."

Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent.

"Danny Boyle has described Trainspottingas 'Scotland's Star Wars'. That is heaping pressure on himself when it comes to directing the sequel. If the new film had stalled in the station, the sense of anti-climax would have been huge. What's so impressive about T2 is how skilfully it manages to stay true to the spirit of the original while acknowledging just how much has changed in the intervening years."

Ultimately, making a follow-up to one of the world's best-loved cult classics is never going to be an easy task (even when you bring back the same cast, writer and director).

Judging by what the critics are saying, though, Danny Boyle has done a pretty solid job.