Film Review: Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
Throughout the history of the American film industry, there have been numerous instances where greed and the inflated egos fueled by propaganda machinery have collided with reality, but few examples are as spectacular as the failure of the project that attempted to exploit the most popular erotic thriller of all time.
In 1992, the surprising commercial success of Basic Instinct not only made the erotic thriller genre suddenly appealing to Hollywood studios but also elevated lead actress Sharon Stone from the realm of B-movies to the top tier of Hollywood. In the meantime, erotic thrillers in Hollywood had become 'passe', and Stone desperately tried to establish herself as a “serious” actress, shedding the image of the cold, cruel seductress that had brought her fame. However, these attempts were not particularly fruitful, and Stone tried to change the downward trajectory of her career by returning to that very image, essentially repeating her most famous role. While Sharon Stone's motivations can be understood, the calculations that led Sony to greenlight the project and allocate $70 million for it represents yet another example of Hollywood's denial of reality.
The producers of Basic Instinct 2 ignored a very simple fact: 14 years had passed between the first and second films. While one could debate whether advancements in cosmetics and plastic surgery rendered this detail insignificant in the case of Sharon Stone and her sex appeal, the fact remains that the era of erotic thrillers of this type has long since passed. Not only are such films incompatible with the neo-puritanical standards of 21st Century Hollywood, epitomised by the infamous PG-13 rating, but audiences seeking erotic content had far more explicit options available on media more suited for such material than cinema. This may have been acknowledged by a number of Hollywood stars who declined to participate in Basic Instinct 2, forcing producers to shift the film's setting from New York to London with less status-obsessed British actors.
The very opening scene proves to be far less explicit than that of the original Basic Instinct—American writer Catherine Tramell (played by Stone) entertains herself while driving a drugged football star at fast pace. When the car ends up in the Thames, the young athlete drowns, while Tramell swims to safety. The police, led by Inspector Washburn (played by David Thewliss), suspects sexual murder, and psychologist Dr. Michael Glass (played by David Morrisey) is appointed to assess Tramell's mental state during the incident. Glass believes that Tramell is addicted to risk and that there is a likelihood she will kill someone in the future simply to see if she can escape responsibility. Despite this diagnosis, it soon becomes evident that he is attracted to her, and he is soon confronted with a series of horrific murders that may be connected to his patient.
Paul Verhoeven, known for his affinity for erotica, was replaced as director by Michael Caton-Jones, a British filmmaker better suited to films with historical themes and also known for The Jackal, one of the most disappointing Hollywood remakes ever made. Caton-Jones was certainly unable to extract any potential from the uninspired script by Leora Barish and Harry Bean. This duo, in an attempt to forcibly differentiate Basic Instinct 2 from Basic Instinct, filled the film with pseudo-intellectual lines of dialogue that sound hollow and make far less sense than the trashy misanthropy of Joe Eszterhas in the dialogues of the first Basic Instinct.
The dialogues, plot, and generally unlikeable characters fall short compared to those in the original. Thus, it is not surprising to see the lead male role being played by the relatively unknown David Morrisey, who, judging by his performance in Basic Instinct 2, could seriously challenge Keanu Reeves as the champion of wooden screen acting.
This may be due to the effort to subordinate the entire film to Sharon Stone and her botox, collagen, and silicone-enhanced allure. Consequently, the character of Catherine Tramell lacks a worthy antagonist, and the unravelling of the plot is as exciting as presidential elections in Saddam's Iraq. To make matters worse, Tramell looks much an alien body that has wandered into this film from some trashy parody of her most iconic film.
Inevitably, comparisons with Basic Instinct are devastating for the sequel, even in terms of quantity and quality of what was supposed to be its main asset — eroticism. The “scandalous” scenes—whether involving mere nudity or explicit depictions of sex—are almost imperceptible in the film's runtime and are unlikely to be remembered. It is hard to imagine that Basic Instinct 2 will look any better in the uncut version rumored to be released on DVD.
Thus, it is entirely understandable that the small number of viewers drawn by nostalgia for the early 1990s, or by Sony's promotional campaign, felt cheated after leaving the cinema theatre and envied those who took the catastrophic reviews of the film seriously. Its spectacular and entirely deserved failure at the American and global box office was later confirmed by four Razzies. Basic Instinct 2 is one of the rare examples where the audience demonstrated that, unlike Hollywood, had some common sense.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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