Danny Boyle's highly anticipated "T2 Trainspotting" takes place 20 years after its monumental predecessor about a group of junkie friends in Edinburgh, Scotland. Reunited with the same cast and screenwriter, Boyle makes a follow-up that is not only part of the same DNA as "Trainspotting" but also appropriately evolved. The sequel avoids falling prey to so many of the common traps of sequels — going too big, remaking the first one, trying too hard to be unique — and follows the path of other successful sequels like the "Before" trilogy by Richard Linklater. It's part of the same piece while weaving in new layers. While it may not go down into the annals of British cinematic history like the first film, to call it a worthy follow-up is almost an understatement.

I won't spend too much time recapping the first film as I assume that if you've read this far, you've already seen it. It's an immensely popular film about lowlifes and the reason, I surmise, it works so well among so many different types of people (off the top of my head I can think of people of all different ages, races, sexes, sexual orientations, nationalities, and varying proclivities for drug use who all love the film... I don't know anyone who dislikes it and only one who just thinks it's okay) has to do with the fact it's not about drug use. It's about being in your 20s and the dramas among your mates. I'm not even British, yet I contend that the first Trainspotting is one of the greatest films ever made. So I was wary to temper my expectations about the sequel. Could it really carry on the legacy?

Aside from the facts that I doubt someone who hadn't seen the first one would really "get it," the likelihood that all four of these characters would survive past the age of 27 is extremely low, it feels more episodic with less of a driving force than the first one, and the denouement feels ever so slightly rushed, I was grinning throughout the whole movie. It was like hanging out with old friends, and the movie doesn't try to do much more besides this (and I mean this in the best way possible). The style is different, but these characters are different. Of course the music would be covers of the stuff they liked in their 20s (I dare anyone to find song remixes as good as these anywhere) and of course the camerawork would be more complicated and colorful. These artists have evolved.

I won't spoil anything any further except to say that if you love the first Trainspotting as much as I do, don't be worried about this film.