And yet, somehow, Sharon Stone gets to have another go at Catherine Tramell, the psycho she played 14 years ago.
Basic Instinct 2: My Soul Is Being Sucked Out Through My Eyes stands a very good chance at being the year's worst movie. It is a useless, worthless, soulless, ugly, vile, insipid, unintentionally funny and generally unpleasant piece of trash. I thought Stone had made enough of an ass of herself with Catwoman, but she's beaten herself at her own cinematic turd game.
Why is Basic Instinct 2: Behold the Fake Sharon Stone Orbs so bad? We'll start with the Stone performance. Never before has one's name so eloquently described their ability to act. As Tramell, she has all of the nuance of a big, bland rock sinking to the bottom of the ocean. She does not have one line that feels remotely human, seemingly forgetting everything that made her devilish work so fun in the original. Her voice maintains a slithery, maddeningly slow pace throughout the entire production, as if to say "I'm such a conniving badass!" with every line.
The film is set in London instead of the United States, so no great American states have been sullied by this production. (Go USA!) As the male lead for Basic Instinct 2: Why Dost Thou Torture My Ass?, they have cast somebody by the name of David Morrissey, who you might recall from Captain Corelli's Mandolin (actually, you probably don't). He plays Dr. Michael Glass, who must analyze Tramell after she becomes a suspect in the murder of her athlete boyfriend. How did British authorities come to suspect her? Because she drove her car off a bridge at 110 mph while being finger-banged by her soon-to-be-dead lover, that's how.
Glass concludes that Tramell has a risk addiction, because that would look cool in the movie's subtitle, and then he spends the rest of the film trying to have sex with her as the death toll rises. Nobody gets ice-picked in this one. Death by asphyxiation, Michael Hutchence/INXS style, seems to be the name of the game this time out. There is one throat-cutting, and another shooting. David Thewlis, as a wisecracking inspector, experiences what is hands-down one of the funniest death scenes ever put to screen. He uses his final words to make a startling proclamation, makes a croaking sound, and then he's outta there. Hilarious.
If you are going to Basic Instinct 2: Sharon Stone Is a Whore hoping for tons of sex romps, it's actually quite stingy with the kinky stuff. There was a promotional teaser featuring all kinds of sex scenes for the film, but director Michael Caton-Jones decided to leave a lot of it on the cutting room floor. (No threesome for you!) It appears he had more of a need for long sessions of Stone talking in slo-mo and smoking lots of cigarettes. Such a bad girl.
This is a movie where actress Charlotte Rampling eating her lunch constitutes the film's best and most interesting scene. Basic Instinct 2: Ridley Scott and James Cameron Can't Get Alien 5 Made, But We Get This?!? was green-lit years ago, but producers chickened out, only to have Stone sue them for her salary. She eventually got her picture made--she's a whole lot richer, and we suffer.
I hate bad movies, I hate bad sequels and, most of all, I hate Sharon Stone.
