Sexual Sparks are absent

BASIC INSTINCT 2 (2006)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I was not an admirer of the original "Basic Instinct," a vapidly lurid though occasionally watchable thriller that sprang Sharon Stone to superstar status. I am also no admirer of "Basic Instinct 2," a far more vapid though sometimes watchable thriller that relies on Stone to carry it through. Normally I would say that an actress of such magnetism may be enough to warrant a viewing - if only she didn't seem so bored throughout.

Sharon Stone is Catherine Tramell, a sexy novelist whose specialty is luring men to bed to fulfill her own sexual fantasies for the sake of a story. Of course, an ice pick and going commando might help to accentuate the allure - oh, she is a dangerous bimbo/literary type. At the start of the film, she drugs some anonymous guy (a well-known athlete apparently) and enjoys some sexual fun while driving a car at top speeds, until it crashes through some billboard or storefront and into the Thames (yep, this story is set in London). Catherine can't save the guy, so she saves herself. For "Basic Instinct" fans, this looks like the real Catherine Tramell. She smokes, she claims she can never cum again (good for a laugh), she likes her reluctant new therapist, Dr. Glass (David Morrisey), and she makes new friends in the therapist world. Naturally, Dr. Glass is taken by her as he starts taking notice of women in restaurants. But he has other worries - a magazine writer is about to spill the beans about Glass and his ex- wife, or something to that effect. What Dr. Glass is hiding or why he feels his career is threatened is never made clear. All he can do is boink a colleague while looking at a book cover with Catherine's face on it, and boink Catherine herself.

Had "Basic Instict 2" focused on Catherine's insatiable appetite for sex, the latest case for "risk addiction," and how she influences the good doctor through sex, it might have worked. Certainly the original "Basic Instinct" had that in spades - Catherine's sexuality defined her. But such base instincts are left out of this sequel, thanks to either the MPAA or director Michael Caton-Jones who is not the right director for this material. Caton-Jones seems to think he is making a soft-porn psychological thriller, when the only aspect that survives is the soft-porn aspect and not much of it either. And when Stone, with the exception of the opening scenes, seems indifferent and as bored as the audience would be, then what is left?

Interestingly, "Basic Instict 2" is actually not boring but not much fun, erotically speaking, either. Stone is out cold, but there is some level of interest in the Dr. Glass character - I kept wondering what his fate was going to be. I realized just now that director Caton- Jones did the remarkable "Scandal" back in 1989. That film was based on the Profumo affair, and starred Joanne Whalley as the seductress. If "Basic Instinct 2" had a tenth of that film's smoldering sexuality, it might have ignited some real sexual sparks back into Sharon Stone.