Basic Instinct 2
Stars: Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, David Thewlis, Charlotte
Rampling
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Critic's rating: 2 out of 10
Review by Chuck O'Leary
After appearing in mostly forgettable movies (Irreconcilable
Differences, King Solomon's Mines, Action
Jackson) throughout the 1980s, Sharon Stone finally
garnered some recognition in 1990 as Arnold Schwarzenegger's double-crossing
wife in Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall. But her biggest
break was just around the corner.
In 1991, when Verhoeven couldn't find a well-known actress to
play the female lead in his next film, Basic Instinct, because
of the extensive nudity the role required, he would eventually cast Stone,
and his chance paid off. Showing little inhibition as bisexual, pantiless femme-fatale
Catherine Tramell, Stone would immediately become a big star and a major sex
symbol once Basic Instinct opened in theaters on March 20,
1992.
However, aside from one flashy Oscar-nominated
supporting performance in Martin Scorsese's excellent Casino
(1995), Stone's post-Basic Instinct career has consisted
mostly of big strikeouts. None of those strikeouts are more
egregious, however, than Basic Instinct 2, a
flat, ill-conceived, ludicrous and totally unnecessary sequel that's at
least 10 years too late.
Originally scheduled for production early in the decade with David
Cronenberg then John McTiernan attached as director, the project was shelved
after a slew of possible leading men (Robert Downey Jr., Benjamin Bratt,
Kurt Russell, Pierce Brosnan, Bruce Greenwood) came and went, and
Stone had a real-life health problem. But with her career
sliding as fast as she was heading toward menopause, Stone actually threatened
legal action to get Basic Instinct 2 back into
production. Filming finally took place last year with a then 47-year-old
Stone reprising the role that made her a star in what seemed like one last
desperate attempt to revive her career as a leading lady.
Sure to be one of the most ridiculed sequels of recent years, if
not ever, Basic Instinct 2 takes place seven years after the
events in the original, and Catherine Tramell has moved to England after
apparently having stabbed San Francisco homicide detective Nick Curran (Michael
Douglas in the original) to death with her infamous ice pick.
The wily seductress was never charged in Nick's or any other murders,
and she's the same kinky, risk-addicted master-manipulator when we're
re-introduced.
As lifeless and slow moving as its predecessor was energetic and
fast paced, the sequel begins with Catherine driving her sports car
while the drugged-up man in the passenger seat performs a sex act on her.
No wonder she crashes into London's Thames River. Catherine swims to
safety, but her passenger drowns, making her the catalyst in yet another
death.
Still a novelist who gets inspiration from murder plots
eerily similar to those in her own life, Catherine's target this time is male
psychiatrist, Dr. Glass (David Morrissey), she plays like piano while writing
her latest book. And as the bodies of Glass' associates start piling
up, and a Scotland Yard detective (David Thewlis) continually warns him,
the doctor proves to be the dumbest shrink in the history of his
profession. Unlike Douglas' Curran, we can never accept Glass as a worthy
psychological adversary to Catherine. It's easy to see why no name actor
was eager to play this dolt of a male lead.
Basic Instinct 2 is something the original never was --
boring. In the first one, director Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas
clearly got off on all the lurid goings-on, and never lost sight of
the fact that their movie was a slick potboiler. In the sequel, though,
director Michael Caton-Jones, along with screenwriters Leora Barish and
Henry Bean (see The Believer (2001) elsewhere on this site) make the
mistake of trying to craft an artful thriller and lose sight of what made the
original so enjoyable. Verhoeven reveled in the first film's trashiness,
but Caton-Jones tries to elevate the material to some kind of prestigious
level, and the result is a dull, excessively talky police procedural with
a smattering of nudity and sex -- the actual amount of sex and nudity
which appears on screen in this U.S. theatrical version has been
overhyped.
Even composer John Murphy's versions of the late, great Jerry
Goldsmith's themes from Basic Instinct lack the punch
Goldsmith provided on the original score.
Who knows? Maybe it was
Stone's insistence on making an artier, different style of film, and given
the threat of her lawsuit, the producers were simply happy to let her hang
herself. Then again, Caton-Jones took an unfair critical drubbing for his
highly entertaining reworking of The Day of the Jackal.
Caton-Jones' The Jackal (1997) is a much more lurid movie than
the original, but it's also a lot more fun.
Had Caton-Jones taken the spirit with which he directed The
Jackal and applied it to Basic Instinct 2, I might be
calling this a guilty pleasure right now instead of an obvious
front-runner for the 2006 Razzies and Stinkers. The only thing worse than
a bad movie is a boring bad movie, and Basic Instinct 2 is
definitely the latter -- it's simply too dull to even work as unintentional
camp.
Also assured a Razzie and Stinker nomination for Worst Actress is
Stone herself. She's a bit long in the tooth to still make Catherine
believably so irresistible, but to make matters worse, any subtlety
from her performance is now gone, and she overplays nearly every line with such
over-insinuation that Catherine becomes a caricature of a sexpot, often sounding
like Jessica Rabbit in heat.
Stone reportedly refused to have Benjamin Bratt cast as the male
lead because "he's not a good enough actor." What is it they
say about people who live in glass houses, Sharon?
There's no doubt that Stone still has a great figure, but one of
the most memorable things about Basic Instinct 2
is how her facial makeup appears just caked on during many scenes,
making her look like a wax-museum version of herself.
This is clearly another sequel that should have never been
made.
