Despite The Presence of Danny Boyle and Lily James, Yesterday Is Let Down By A Lackluster Script

You know Summer 2019 is coming up short on quality cinema when even Danny Boyle is delivering average fare. Whereas fusing Danny Boyle’s direction with the writing of Aaron Sorkin turned out to be a match made in heaven in 2015s Steve Jobs, merging his directorial skills with the writing of Richard Curtis (of Love, Actually fame) in the new feature Yesterday turns out to be a match made in…certainly not Hell, but somewhere in between (Milwaukee, maybe?) Though Yesterday has one of the more unique premises for a mainstream movie in a blue moon, the execution of that premise leaves much to be desired.

"Take Me Home...T2: Trainspotting....To The Place...I Beloooooong...."

The track record of long-delayed follow-ups to highly beloved pop culture properties isn't exactly littered with tons of success stories. Two notable examples of this trend came in 2013, when Arrested Development came back with a narratively ambitious new season that was OK but not quite as successful as its initial seasons while Anchorman 2 reunited Ron Burgundy with his news team for occasionally humorous but mostly just scattered antics. I'd imagine director Danny Boyle knew about this trend going into the making of T2: Trainspotting, a follow-up to the 1996 film Trainspotting, and if he did, he'd likely be happy to know that T2: Trainspotting is a massive departure from that trend in that it's a worthy follow-up to the original movie.

Before He Had The High Ground, Ewan McGregor Was Doing Tremendous Acting In The Bleak Classic Trainspotting

Little did avid moviegoers in the 1990's realize how many of the movies they were watching from then unknown filmmakers would turn out to be the start of careers that would forever change the face of cinema. The early part of this decade had the likes of Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino all leap onto the silver screen and immediately leave their mark on the artform they loved in a way that is still being felt and influencing new filmmakers today. Lest you think all the early films from soon-to-be prolific filmmakers were limited to the early days of this decade, one of the middle years of this decade (1996) delivered the first movie from Wes Anderson and the second feature film from one Danny Boyle.