Basic Instinct 2
Studio: MGM Pictures
Rated: R
Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/basicinstinct2/
Release Date: 2006-03-31
Cast: Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling, David Thewlis, Hugh Dancy
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Screenwriter: Henry Bean, Leora Barish
WorkNameSort: Basic Instinct 2
Our Rating: 1.50
Basic Instinct 2 H1/2
I was going to say I respect any movie that can make both sex and premeditated murder look so dull … until I realized the word I was searching for was “resent,” not “respect.” Nympho murderess Catherine Tramell is on the loose again, this time in England and with psychotherapist David Morrissey replacing Michael Douglas as the double-chinned, skinny-assed guy who gets to hop on top of her and make faces. Most of the energy appears to have gone into the movie’s desperate-to-be-talked about opening sequence, in which Cath gets fingered by a soccer player in a speeding car that smashes through glass and finally plunges underwater. Everything after that is a letdown, leadenly paced and obnoxiously twisty in the manner of countless uninspired cable thrillers. The film’s hilarious intended subtitle, Risk Addiction, sadly didn’t make it to the release stage, but there are still enough variations of it in the final shooting script to make for a fun drinking game when you rent the DVD three weeks from now.
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2006.