Sharon Stone's Basic Instinct 2 is far from being the worst erotic thriller ever made.
It's decidedly superior to Madonna's Body of Evidence or Rebecca De Mornay's Guilty as Sin.
It's not even the worst Sharon Stone erotic thriller. That honour goes to her 1993 dud, Sliver.
But being better than such obvious trash doesn't make Basic Instinct 2 either a good whodunit or particularly sexy.
It opens promisingly, to be certain. Catherine Tramell (Stone) is speeding through the streets of London with a hunky soccer star who's spaced out on drugs or booze and putting Tramell in the driver's seat not just of the car, but of the sexual act she's initiating.
Her car plunges into the Thames.
She escapes, but her boy toy drowns, so Tramell is taken into custody on suspicion of murder.
Homicide detective Roy Washburn (David Thewlis) is convinced this was no accident but a thrill kill, so he insists Tramell see forensic psychiatrist Michael Glass (David Morrissey).
Thus begins a series of cat-and-mouse mind games between Tramell and Glass that turn not just sexual, but kinky.
Suddenly people associated with Glass start dying in rather nasty ways.
Tramell could be seeing just how far she can go without being apprehended or Washburn could be so desperate to put Tramell behind bars, he'll kill in her name.
Several other suspects end up dead.
Both Stone and Morrissey have nude scenes and talk explicitly about sexual positions and practices, but the frankness is hardly steamy or erotic. It's all rather clinical and dull.
To get any thrills or satisfaction, the viewer has to become a sleuth, rather than a voyeur.
The solution will seem either too obvious or too convoluted.
In the original Basic Instinct, Stone created a cold, calculating vixen who considered everything sexy, including murder. She was sexually, emotionally and intellectually manipulative, a villain as sensual as she was intriguing.
Now, Tramell's just nasty and scheming -- no longer the woman we love to hate, but simply hateful.
We don't secretly want her to get away with murder this time. We want her to receive her just punishment.
It's certainly true Stone's acting is outrageous and over the top, but no more so than Thewlis, who hasn't been this excessive and unbelievable since The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Morrissey never gets sleazy enough to have real fun with his role as the uptight Brit, who hopes just being around Tramell will fulfil his darkest fantasies.
Charlotte Rampling, as the colleague he turns to for advice, tries to add a bit of class, but her efforts are wasted.
Michael Canton-Jones is the wrong kind of director for a sexual romp through murder and mayhem. He's too restrained. This film needed someone who'd ratchet up the sexual tension and intellectual suspense.
Basic Instinct 2 is neither titillating nor chilling enough to take us on a wild emotional ride.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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