Poseidon-3 Review of Basic Instinct 2

Basic Instinct 2 (2006)

Basically no one had the instinct to see it, nor should they.

[22 July 2009]

Ms. Stone seems to have taken a page from Madonna's dismal failure "Body of Evidence" rather than to faithfully revisit her own concoction from the original film. This belated and besieged sequel to "Basic Instinct" has precious little to do with the first film in character, setting or sensibility, choosing instead to create a maze-like, senseless storyline with plenty of "shocking" language and a surprising lack of sex and nudity. Stone plays the infamous crime novelist Catherine Tramell, now established in London where she manages to drown one of her lovers within the opening moments of the movie. But was it intentional or just an unfortunate side affect of her soon-to-be-diagnosed "risk addiction?" And does anyone really care? She turns to a psychiatrist for help in conquering her demons, but he has at least as many issues as she does and, naturally, is involved with any number of people with whom Stone is also intimately acquainted. When some of them start popping up dead, the shrink (Morrisey) becomes as much of a suspect as Stone is, if not more. Mangy detective Thewlis tries to piece everything together while Morrisey's associate Rampling becomes entwined in the mess as well. Stone appears to have poured all of her attention into appearing as glacially beautiful as possible and in the bargain has not only forgotten the more conflicted and interesting character that made her famous, but has forgotten to perform at all! Countless shots of her in outré designer duds, spouting vulgarity or otherwise attempting to be stunning do not add up to much of anything. She comes off as a lewd mannequin without any identifiable qualities. Morrisey is saddled with a character so pliable and ignorant that he also lacks identifiability for the audience. Needless to say, he also lacks the star power that Michael Douglas brought to the first film. Someone involved should have realized that a character as provocative as Catherine Tramell works better as a supporting character rather than a lead, though the producers struggled all along to find ANY name actor willing to take the male part in this debacle. Who knows why Thewlis and Rampling are present. Thewlis already proved that he is willing to appear in anything when he worked on the deadly "Island of Dr. Moreau" with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, but Rampling typically knows better. At least they manage to emerge with their dignity intact. It's rather sickening to hear the late Jerry Goldsmith's amazing music applied to this idiotic movie (uncredited!!) The one thing the film has going for it is it's beautiful design. The costumes are striking, the cinematography is gorgeous and the sets are often stunning. London is presented in a captivating and eye-appealing way and the clothes are frequently selected to match the locations perfectly. Otherwise, this is a major waste of time and money that found practically no audience waiting for it at the theater. It was a notorious bomb.