Basic Instinct II (18.)
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones. 2006.
Starring Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, David Thewlis and Charlotte Rampling. (Reviewed at the time of its cinema release.)
It’s been 14 years since, to misquote David Coleman, Sharon Stone opened her legs and showed her class in the first Basic Instinct. That first film took a previously unremarkable support player and conferred on her a level of superstardom that she had stubbornly managed to retain despite numerous unwise career choices. Now though a sequel has arrived so bad it will surely confirm her demotion back down into the ranks of the formerly famous.
Basic Instinct II relocates her Catherine Tramell character to London and while such a move sent a burst of energy through Woody Allen’s filmmaking in Match Point here it just reeks of the last chance saloon. There’s something very Carry On Follow That Camel about seeing Stone cast adrift among an all English cast: she’s Phil Silvers to David Morrissey’s Charles Hawtrey and David Thewlis’s Kenneth Williams.
It’s a very odd match and the British leads all react differently to being invited to the party. David Morrissey has been commanding on the telly in recent years but on the big screen he looks awkward and overwhelmed; he practically shrivels up when up against Stone. He makes you think fondly back to Michael Douglas and his baggy jumpers in the original. Thewlis though, playing a shady copper, struts around like he’s too good to be slumming it here and treats the whole thing with a larky disdain, drifting in and out of a Welsh accent as the fancy takes him. Surprisingly Charlotte Rampling, who you might’ve expected to be a bit snooty about it all, is a thoroughly good sport - though that could be because her role as some kind of psychologist doesn’t really call on her to do very much other than stand around and offer red herring options.
Directing duties have been given to the normally competent Brit Michael Caton Jones but he never gets a handle on the material. Londoners will be nodding in fond recognition of his vision of the capital as a Gherkin-centric, high tech metropolis where ladies can casually race their sports car at 100 mph down empty night streets while being pleasured by doped up Premiership footballers before casually crashing into the Thames.
BI II has been a long time coming and during the wait we were promised that they had come up with a compelling idea for the follow-up. They hadn't. What we get is something so dull it'd barely pass muster as an ITV weekend two-parter. Right from the start, BI II makes no claims to your attention. All it offers is some pants-on-fire plotting that boils down to endless repetitions of "She's lying to you," "No, he's lying to you."
And it is a bad joke and mortal affront that the moment Ms Tramell arrives in Britain it becomes almost entirely sexless. The original was terribly European, very casual and shameless about being vulgar and titillating but this follow up is a rather chaste affair, restricting itself to a couple of brief, perfunctory sex scenes. The film could be some kind of cunning Euro plot to make us Brits look as uptight and priggish as our stereotype. The only good thing is that that film came out after the Olympic decision – coming after the Dome and Pickett’s Lock I don’t think London’s bid could have survived this latest addition to its reputation for hosting disasters.
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones. 2006.
Starring Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, David Thewlis and Charlotte Rampling. (Reviewed at the time of its cinema release.)
It’s been 14 years since, to misquote David Coleman, Sharon Stone opened her legs and showed her class in the first Basic Instinct. That first film took a previously unremarkable support player and conferred on her a level of superstardom that she had stubbornly managed to retain despite numerous unwise career choices. Now though a sequel has arrived so bad it will surely confirm her demotion back down into the ranks of the formerly famous.
Basic Instinct II relocates her Catherine Tramell character to London and while such a move sent a burst of energy through Woody Allen’s filmmaking in Match Point here it just reeks of the last chance saloon. There’s something very Carry On Follow That Camel about seeing Stone cast adrift among an all English cast: she’s Phil Silvers to David Morrissey’s Charles Hawtrey and David Thewlis’s Kenneth Williams.
It’s a very odd match and the British leads all react differently to being invited to the party. David Morrissey has been commanding on the telly in recent years but on the big screen he looks awkward and overwhelmed; he practically shrivels up when up against Stone. He makes you think fondly back to Michael Douglas and his baggy jumpers in the original. Thewlis though, playing a shady copper, struts around like he’s too good to be slumming it here and treats the whole thing with a larky disdain, drifting in and out of a Welsh accent as the fancy takes him. Surprisingly Charlotte Rampling, who you might’ve expected to be a bit snooty about it all, is a thoroughly good sport - though that could be because her role as some kind of psychologist doesn’t really call on her to do very much other than stand around and offer red herring options.
Directing duties have been given to the normally competent Brit Michael Caton Jones but he never gets a handle on the material. Londoners will be nodding in fond recognition of his vision of the capital as a Gherkin-centric, high tech metropolis where ladies can casually race their sports car at 100 mph down empty night streets while being pleasured by doped up Premiership footballers before casually crashing into the Thames.
BI II has been a long time coming and during the wait we were promised that they had come up with a compelling idea for the follow-up. They hadn't. What we get is something so dull it'd barely pass muster as an ITV weekend two-parter. Right from the start, BI II makes no claims to your attention. All it offers is some pants-on-fire plotting that boils down to endless repetitions of "She's lying to you," "No, he's lying to you."
And it is a bad joke and mortal affront that the moment Ms Tramell arrives in Britain it becomes almost entirely sexless. The original was terribly European, very casual and shameless about being vulgar and titillating but this follow up is a rather chaste affair, restricting itself to a couple of brief, perfunctory sex scenes. The film could be some kind of cunning Euro plot to make us Brits look as uptight and priggish as our stereotype. The only good thing is that that film came out after the Olympic decision – coming after the Dome and Pickett’s Lock I don’t think London’s bid could have survived this latest addition to its reputation for hosting disasters.
