PLOT: Sharon Stone talks dirty, wears great clothes, kills people.
For all the advance hoopla about shameless shagging in Basic Instinct 2, Sharon Stone seems to spend more time talking about it than doing it in the movie. Maybe to the British, oral sex means something different? The movie was filmed in London.
Basic Instinct 2 is trashy and stupid, and not really in a fun sort of way. As a movie, it's a grim mix of heavy plotting, heavier acting and campy dialogue. As a cultural artifact, however, particularly of the apocalypse-pretty-soon variety, it's a keeper.
Paul Verhoeven directed the original Basic Instinct, a psychological thriller released in 1992 with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone. Stone played a seductive killer and Douglas was the only cop who suspected her, not that this helped him resist her charms. In one memorable moment from the first film, Stone crosses her legs during a police interrogation and reveals a distinct lack of knickers. In another such moment, audiences laugh out loud at Michael Douglas' naked bottom.
Basic Instinct 2 repeats the general sex and crime territory: Stone returns as Catherine Tramell, novelist, maneater, clothes-horse, killer. The sequel begins with Stone driving her sports car off a bridge during wild sex, an accident that proves to be a well-planned murder and a strong indication that the screenwriters are hoping your willing suspension of disbelief comes with a ripcord.
The police investigation that follows the accident pits Catherine against a big cheese psychiatrist, played by David Morrissey, who is both repelled and fascinated by her. Their game of cat and mouse and seduction begins.
(His world and his psyche are well represented by several visual jokes from shrinkdom, like a dark and forbidding hallway, for example, that leads to the ladies loo. I'm afraid our time is up for today.)
The psychiatrist has an ex-wife (Indira Varma) and a female colleague (Charlotte Rampling), both of whom also get caught in Catherine's web. Then there's the detective who hates Catherine (David Thewlis), a journalist with an agenda (Hugh Dancy) and plenty of other people who all wind up sorry they ever encountered Catherine Tramel.
Basic Instinct 2 is plotted around head games of one sort or another but the complications are annoying rather than intriguing. The dialogue suggests that the filmmakers weren't quite sure if they should play this thing seriously or for camp laughs. Stone is flinty and over-the-top in her performance; it's terrible, to be sure, but in a riveting sort of way. Even though the story is boring and the storytelling causes people to laugh out loud in the wrong places, the truth is that you can't stop looking at it. Part of that is the lavish production, all gorgeous clothes and terrific furniture. And part is the same impulse that prompts people to look at roadkill.
BOTTOM LINE: Basic Instinct 2 is the full kilo block of Velveeta and could only be considered titillating by adolescent boys. Still, you may find yourself cheering for Stone just because she had the hide to go through with this thing.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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