Basic Instinct 2

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

We hope you weren't expecting a lot from this blatant attempt to cash in on the 14-year-old sensation that turned Sharon Stone from a "who is that?" to a "holy fuck," because Basic Instinct 2 just might send her career to basic cable. The flimsy story finds scary seductress Catherine Trammell now living in London, up to her old tricks and immediately coming under suspicion after a whopper of an opening. (She sails her car into the Thames while pleasuring a male companion—see, women can't drive!) Police then appoint a psychiatrist (David Morrissey) to look into her mental sanity, but he falls victim to her as well. Sure, she looks considerably younger than someone pushing 50, and the topless shots, however paltry, do hold up—thanks, plastic surgery!—but skip this one in theatres and wait for the director's cut version on DVD. (We hear there was a ménage à trois scene that was cut to avoid an NC-17 rating.)