Lost and Found: Basic Instinct 2

In writing about Sharon Stone as crime novelist Catherine Tramell, a role she’s played twice, I was faced with two enticing choices. First, and most obvious, is to write about Stone’s electrifying, transcendent, and scandalous performance in her first Catherine Tramell film, Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992). That film is basically the gold standard for stylish, sexy, and deliciously trashy erotic thrillers. My second option is far less obvious, probably because no one really seems to like the 2006 sequel Basic Instinct 2, where Stone reprised her role as Tramell, the sexiest suspected serial killer ever.

One of these days I’ll do a nice, lengthy tribute to Stoke and Basic Instinct, possibly as part of the “Bad Girls We Love” series. For now though, I’m doing what I often do around here and taking a hard left instead to extol the hidden virtues of a sequel that Roger Ebert called, “godawful.” Okay, it’s not a great movie, so “virtues” might be a stretch, I know. Yet even though it’s a drastic step down in quality from the first film, it’s still intermittently entertaining, and that’s because of one thing: Sharon Stone is a woman possessed in this film.

She’s a dynamic delight here, seemingly relishing the camp overtones and chewing scenery like she’s been starving herself for a month. This is not a subtle movie, after all. Look no further than the opening scene, with Catherine speeding through London in a sports car while using her drugged male passenger’s hand to pleasure herself, eventually climaxing as the car careens off the road and crashes into the water below.

Right away, you can see why Basic Instinct 2 won Worst Picture and Stone won Worst Actress at the Golden Raspberry Awards. Movies like this aren’t meant for mainstream success, of course. They’re meant to live on in video and streaming, entertaining fans of B-movie style excess who just want to enjoy watching Sharon Stone reprising her most famous role and being as campy as she can be. This time out, Catherine has left sunny California for jolly old England and, after her male companion dies in the car crash, she’s under police investigation once again. Ordered by the courts to meet with a psychiatrist (David Morrissey), Catherine then plays her usual cat-and-mouse games on the hapless doctor, who gets in way over his head with the dangerous and seductive Catherine (hilariously referred to as “the cunning cougar” in the Google summary of the film).

The film is both over the top and not over the top enough. Compared to the first, it’s not entertaining enough, except for the you-can’t-take-your-eyes-off-her performance of Sharon Stone. She had to know this was an unworthy sequel, but she sucked it up and dug deep into her bag of tricks to make her part in this mess work. From body language to how she delivers her lines, Stone masterfully conveys Catherine’s predatory catlike appeal.

Beyond Stone, the rest is slim pickings, so thank goodness she’s front and center throughout. She’s the reason we’re here for this subpar sequel, after all. Her castmates are largely forgettable. Gone is her marvelous sparring partner Michael Douglas, replaced instead with a wooden David Morrissey as her conflicted therapist. Stone eats him for lunch every time they’re onscreen together. He doesn’t stand a chance against her. It’s a shame Robert Downey Jr. reportedly turned down Morrissey’s role, as he would’ve provided a fantastic foil to Stone’s alpha star turn.

Basic Instinct 2 was in development hell for years. When it was cancelled at one point, Stone said she was guaranteed a 14 million dollar payday to do the sequel whether or not it got made, so she filed a lawsuit. The producers settled with her by agreeing to make the movie. At one point David Cronenberg was rumored to have been offered the director’s chair. If only he’d accepted. Instead we got the far less transgressive director Michael Caton-Jones. Stone had to fight to include the steamier sex scenes as well, correctly surmising that you need to go big doing a sequel to Basic Instinct. With a better script, this could’ve been a success, and lord knows Stone is a joy to watch in the role no matter what. Sadly, the ingredients aren’t there to make Basic Instinct 2 as good as it should’ve been. Yet it’s still a deliciously deviant entry in the Catherine Tramell story, thanks to the force of nature that is Sharon Stone.

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Basic Instinct 2 is streaming for free on Tubi.