You don't have to be gloating over a wasted generation to embrace T2 Trainspotting, a confident, quirky comedy-drama that skillfully alternates bangs and whimpers.

The first Trainspotting was about heroin. The second is about another dangerously addictive drug: Nostalgia.

A film nowhere near as revelatory as the original, but in some ways more satisfying, the proper closing of a tale that had been left open-ended.

T2 Trainspotting succeeds where so many sequels fail. Despite the occasional flimsy plot point or softly delivered jab, the film provides a dramatic, hilarious, sad, joyously non-PC cinematic high, one that should please the first chapter's many fans.