Sharon Stone has had a very chequered career, spanning performances that have garnered Golden Globes and Oscar nominations, as well as Razzies. Her performance in Casino convinced skeptics of her acting ability and yet it is for her portrayal of the sexily sinister author Catherine Tramell - in Basic Instinct - that she is perhaps most remembered. Basic Instinct II revives the role a dangerous undertaking and one that many critics have panned (possibly without even watching it). Yet the character is an interesting one and deserves not to be dismissed so lightly, especially in this well-written sequel.
The enigma of Tramell is whether, in researching her novels, she just gets very close to actual murders, or whether she actually commits them. In Basic Instinct II we become aware of a third possibility that she manipulates people into creating interesting story lines, even if it means pushing them over the edge mentally and emotionally so they perhaps commit crimes they would not otherwise have committed. Following in the footsteps of twisted real-life authors recently depicted on screen such as Capote, such a possibility does not seem so preposterous.
Where Basic Instinct II fails, is in capturing a suitable target audience. The original Basic Instinct, however good a thriller, is linked in the public imagination with a particularly explicit scene involving Stone uncrossing and crossing her legs during a police interview. Given the raunchy nature of Tramell's personal life, to which the film gave ample reign, the movie drew adult audiences hoping to be shocked. This creates a number of problems for Basic Instinct II. Firstly, the public taste for sexual explicitness seems to have ebbed. Sex scenes are more likely to kill a blockbuster than boost attendances. The independent and European films featuring explicit sexuality tend not to get multiplex coverage and the limits are now so broad that most mainstream actresses are unlikely to want to push the envelope with such explicitness unless it is to test the limits of art and Basic Instinct II, like its forerunner, is a thriller not an art house movie.
Yet it suffers from the 'sex-movie' tag. Re-shot in black and white, with a shorter running time, and minimizing any nudity, Basic Instinct II could have been marketed as film noir. The difficulty of puzzling out the who-dunnit keeps the attention, but waiting for the next sex scene it just fizzles (as there's very little to wait for). With a running time of nearly two hours, some of the direction could have been tighter, but the overall feel of the movie almost creates a genre. Sharon Stone hones Tramell's character even better than in the original, and the final twist is difficult to anticipate. As a portrait of a genius writer that can run rings around police detectives and psycho-analysts, Basic Instinct delivers in spades. While Sharon Stone is a good-looking fortysomething, those watching it for sexy thrills may be disappointed.
