Basic In-stinks. Movie Exclusive

01 April 2006

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There are bad ideas, and there are bad ideas. ‘Basic Instinct 2’ is a terrible idea.In 1992, teenage boys and fully-grown men around the world flocked to the cinema to watch Sharon Stone get interrogated and flash at cop-on-the-edge Michael Douglas.The ‘interrogation scene’ as it’s come to be known was a defining moment in cinema - it was erotic, powerful and shocking. The then 34-year-old’s leg crossing antics had become an iconic image.Looking back, it could have been very different, she confesses: "I knew that we were going to do this leg crossing thing and I knew that we were going to allude to the concept that I was nude, but I did not think that you would see my vagina in the scene.""Later, when I saw it in the screening I was shocked. I think seeing it in a room full of strangers was so disrespectful to me and so shocking, so I went into the booth and slapped the director and left."

14 years later Sharon is back as Catherine Tramell - the unhinged novelist with a taste for illicit sex - and wants to shock us again. The only thing is this time she’s crossed the line from being a smouldering sex kitten who males mentally-begged to show more flesh.. into a megalomaniacal naturist from hell - she can’t keep her clothes on!In ‘Basic Instinct 2’, a successful London psychiatrist, Michael Glass (played by David Morrissey), is asked to evaluate a woman after she is involved in the mysterious death of a famous sports star. The female in question is bestselling crime novelist Catherine Tramell (Stone), whose grisly fictional plots come to life with alarming frequency. The sexual magnetism between psychiatrist and subject is immediate, and before he even realises it, Glass finds himself sucked into Catherine's web of lies, seduction and murder.The only thing is that this time round hearing the 48-year-old talk dirty and watching her rampant romping leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable rather than aroused. But, according to Stone, that’s exactly what she wanted.

She revealed: "I felt we should hold off on the full nudity for a while in the movie and then I thought that when I ultimately did do the nude scene it should be done in a startling way that would be disturbing and threatening.

"I wanted to do the nudity in a way that's quite brazen. I wanted my character Catherine to be very masculine, like a man in a steam room. I wanted the audience to have a moment where they realize she's naked and then realize she's a forty-something woman and naked."

And Sharon wasn’t impressed when film bosses and censors got cold-feet and tried to tone it down - in fact, she demanded that put more sex in.

The feisty mum said: "I wanted a lot of sex in the sequel. I was coming from a really kinky place. I wanted more nudity.

"When I saw a rough cut of the film they had taken a lot of stuff out and I asked, 'Where's all the crazy stuff I did? What are we toning it down for?'

"I said to them, 'Let's go crazy!' So we took some things out of the film and a lot of the kinky stuff and sex went back in."Sex is at the centre of everything that ‘Basic Instinct 2’ is about. There’s no escaping that fact, but this time instead of taking an older and more experienced lover, this time Sharon’s character gets hot and sweaty with a younger man.

She doesn’t want to make a big thing about it though. She said: "David Morrissey, who plays my psychiatrist, is not that much younger than me. Come on! Plus, I think it’s nice to have a little bit of variety in films. "And at my age, they’d have to hire my grandfather if I was going to keep up the balance that you see in Hollywood these days."

There’s one sex scene in the sequel that particularly stands out. A sadomasochistic influenced session where Sharon’s character starts to choke her shrink-turned lover.

David says he just had to trust the actress and hope she knew what she was doing. He revealed: "That scene, the choking one, is extreme beyond the nudity. You have to trust the other actor.

"We got it wrong a few times and I got smacked in the face. You know what you are trying to go for and it's a technical exercise. We trusted each other to know that if I was in trouble that she would let it go.

"When we got to the nude scenes I was really nervous at first - who wouldn't be? - and a little embarrassed. But I knew they were coming up. It wasn't a shock, so I got down to it."

However, all the naughtiness did eventually leave a nasty taste in his mouth.

The actor confessed: "We were having quite a lot of sex, in the end, too much sex. It wasn't erotic. "A lot has changed since the original. Back then, I remember being surprised that Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas looked like they were actually having sex."

When Stone is asked what happened to her on-screen lover in the original film the answer is simple. She rather coldly explains: "He’s dead."

It’s taken 14 years to get this sequel off the ground and into cinemas. But sadly for the cast and crew, it has been widely panned. It's a laboured affair that would make a great advert for the London Tourist Board - minus the nudity of course - but as a thriller it falls flat.

‘Basic Instinct 2’ has everything you’d expect - sex, plot twists, sex, red herrings, and sex. However, you can’t help but feel like you’re watching an average TV drama spliced, on occasions, with pornography.

Overall, it’s an uncomfortable ride that leaves you unsatisfied and never quite hits the spot. That’s something Catherine Tramell would never put up with, so why should we?

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