Basic Instinct 2

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Summary:
Catherine Tramell is back! This time, she's in London terrorizing an unprepared psychologist after crashing a car into a river, and letting the passenger die. Mental mindfucking (pffft!) and little other kinds of fucking, ensues.

Review:
I only watched an hour and a half of this, so I won't give a final grade. Having SEEN that much of the movie (I had another movie to see instead of this one, so I was killing time), I am sure I can make a fair judgement of what the rest of it has to offer.

Wow. I mean, like, WOW! This is some movie! Does anyone not think that Sharon Stone is trying her best to get back on the B-List with a rehash to a movie that made her popular back in the EARLY 90's?! Anyone with half a brain knows that a sequel is not something that Basic Instinct needed. Here we are, though, unfortunately.
If you expect this to be a GOOD movie, then you've already got the wrong mindset. If you want some gore and gratuitious sex, well, that should be what you're looking for, but don't expect it. Instead, keep your mind open with a half a bottle of Jack in your tummy before stepping into the movie theater. I was clean and sober, so I can't really say I was enjoying myself.
Sharon Stone looks good for being nearly 50, but I never found her hot, and she looks worse now than she did in 1992. You'd think that with her being older and all, she'd be more mature and more "refined" as an actress. Stop thinking! The opening scene is the most hilarious part, where she's driving fast through the streets of London, puts her fingers in a dude's mouth and then puts them between her legs and starts getting off while recklessly veering off into a river. She then let's the man beside her die (obviously drugged out) as she swims to the top, and looks around as if she's the terminatrix. Cut to the police station, where she's being interviewed about the possible murder of the sports star in the car with her. She says that he was breathing as she crashed alright, because he was "making me cum". The cop says, "You mean to tell me that you were going 100 miles an hour while having sex in the car?"
"A hundred and ten," she says.
Add to this her desire to constantly have a half-knowing smirk on her face as she tries desperately to look sexy (and failing) to make the cops salivate over her. Only in the movies, and most of all, only in THIS movie does this work. I mean that it works on the characters, not for the movie. Let's try to laugh as we look into the interrogation room TV camera screen, and we see Catherine sucking a cigarrette and smiling right into the camera. Right.
Cut to her asking to be evaluated by Mr. Glass, who is of course the toughest and most intelligent psychological mind the police have to offer. He says she has a "risk addiction". In case you didn't hear him the first time, don't worry they'll bring it up about 20 more times before the movie ends. Of course, Catherine Tramell gives him a run for his money with questions asked to her questions, such as "Do you think you have a serious risk addiction?"
"Do you think I do, doctor?"
Meanwhile, she's displaying her knowing smile. It would be awesome to take a drink every time she looks into the camera (which is when she's looking at Dr. Glass, typically) and gives her smarmy smile.

Somehow, Dr. Glass becomes enthralled by her risky behavior and retarded double-talk, and has a controlling and somewhat abusive sex scene with a chick he brings home. Of course he's thinking of Catherine. The more she toys with him, the more dangerous he becomes. Who's evaluating and psychologically fucking up who, eh?
As one murder after another comes up, you can't help but know what the fuck is going on, and you get pissed off at Dr. Glass not telling shit to the cops because of doctor patient confidentiality. Seriously, only the stupidest psychologist in the universe would keep his mouth shut about revealing a possible suspect. It must be because he likes the risk involved!
My favorite scene before I left was him following her in the streets into prostitute-town, and he thinks she's in trouble. Of course she isn't, and he looks down through a rooftop window at an orgy where she's getting humped like a trampoline, and she looks up through the window and smirks knowingly at him. Again. Great stuff.

The biggest surprise for me was that I enjoyed David Morrissey's performance. With what he was given, he played it like a champ. You should know going into this that you won't be watching a good movie. In fact, it's so bad that it nearly is laughable. I think that if I was with some friends and we all wanted a good laugh, we could sit in the back row - no, wait - we could sit in the empty theater and make fun of the cheesiness. Do I care about the final 25 minutes or so of the movie? Not really. I'll finish it some day, and when I do I'll give a final grade. Until then, I say check it out on a dollar theater matinee, but don't expect anything great. I mean, DUUUHHH!! It's exactly what Basic Instinct could have been, but miraculously wasn't. The first one was pretty whitty and not self indulgent. It knows it's kinda silly, but also never goes too far beyond the edge into pure corn. Can't say the same for this one!

UPDATE:
It's April 9, 2008. I finally watched the last half of the movie. I thought it was an hour and a half, not a full 2 hours. It was more painful to sit through than I had anticipated. At least now, I can safely give it the grade it deserves.

GRADE: F

Reviewed: 4/3/06