Tags:
Film: Basic Instinct II
Year: 2006
Director: Michael Caton-Jones
Writer: Leora Barish and Henry Bean
Starring: Sharon Stone, David Morrissey and David Thewlis
Review:
This film begins with Sharon Stone in a car with Stan Collymore. Stone is reprising her role from the original film and she is a novelist. Collymore is a professional soccer player who seems out of it. Stone takes his hand and starts to pleasure herself. She is speeding down the road as this is going on. As she climaxes, she drives into the water. She tries to free him, but is unable. She does save herself though.
She is being brought up on charges of murder for this incident. The detective in charge of this investigation is David Thewlis. Working with him is Neil Maskell. They interview Stone and much like the original film, they get nothing out of her. It is decided to send to a psychologist to see if they can get a hold on her to build a case.
The man that Scotland Yard uses is David Morrissey. Stone arrives with her lawyer, who is supposed to be the best and is played by Terence Harvey. Stone decides to go in without him and she is interviewed by Morrissey. His assessment is that she has problems with risk addiction and that she is a danger. The judge sees it the other way and she is released.
Morrissey is leaving the court when he bumps into Hugh Dancy. Dancy is a reporter and he doesn’t get along with Morrissey. The reason we learn later is that Morrissey is divorced because Dancy was sleeping with his wife, who is played by Indira Varma. They are actually seeing each other still. Dancy is writing an article on Stone and this incident and tries to get a quote from Morrissey, who blows him off.
There is a party later that Morrissey goes to with his colleague, played by Charlotte Rampling. Morrissey is trying to get a position that is prestigious, but he has to impress Heathcote Williams. Williams is kind of eccentric and gives a backhanded compliment to Morrissey who critiqued something that Williams wrote. Morrissey is also trying to move on with his life and kind of seeing Flora Montgomery.
The next day Stone goes to Morrissey’s to get him to treat her for her risk addiction. He declines, stating that it would be inappropriate with their past now. He is willing to give her the name of Rampling who is just as good. She declines and is persistent in changing his mind. She shows up to another party, one that Williams throws.
Morrissey agrees to take her on as a patient, but his life starts to become crazy afterwards. Stone is seeing Dancy along with his ex-wife. She is becoming all that he can think about and when she stops seeing him as a patient, he starts to follow her. There are talks of another patient that Morrissey was seeing that was thought to have killed his girlfriend. Thewlis is bound and determined to convict Stone of a crime.
People around them start to die and there are questions of who is the killer? Is it Stone? Morrissey? Varma? Or someone else? Can Morrissey get to the bottom of all this before he goes crazy himself?
Now I will admit that I checked this film out, because I really liked the original. This one though I don’t think is nearly as bad as everyone seems to make out it to be. Now it is very close to being a clone of the original. It has been some time since I’ve seen that one. My question though is what do you expect? It is like the Hangover Part II, you watched what you did in the first one and then they are trying to capitalize on that success with another one. It is interesting though how long they waited to do this one. I thought the mystery and trying to figure out what is going on was good. I was slightly disappointed by the ending. I wanted a little more out of it than what we got. Aside from that though, it is another interesting take on a man being obsessed with Stone’s character and trying to prove they are not the one doing the murders, all while hoping that she is not one doing them either.
I will say that the acting for this film is actually really good. This film has a solid cast. I have to talk about the star first though, Stone. There were 14 years between the original and this sequel. She was also 48 years old at the time this film was made and I will say she looked fantastic. She is nude in the film and I won’t lie I enjoyed it. With that being said though, I thought her acting was really good as well. She is this character and has the role down. I love how she is in control in every scene, no matter what the person opposite her thinks and it is great. The other star, Morrissey, was solid as well. I liked him on the Walking Dead and I believe this is the first film I’ve seen him in. He is great because at the beginning, he is in control, but the more he delves in with Stone, we see him losing his grip. I’m a huge fan of seeing people descend into madness. Thewlis is solid as the persistent detective. You can believe that he could possible be dirty. I’m a big fan of Rampling and Dancy as well.
I will say that I thought the film could have been trimmed a little bit. There were a couple of stretches where the editing could have tightened it up. It just felt there was some things that we were given that wasn’t necessarily needed to progress the story. The soundtrack didn’t stand out to me, so I don’t feel that it hurt it either.
Now I am adding this to my horror film research. This isn’t a horror film, but it does have elements of films from the genre. There is a decent body count of murders. One of them is particularly bloody. It almost comes off to me as a non-horror slasher in that regard. I am also adding it due to Morrissey and his descent into madness at trying to get to the bottom of what is going on and proves that he is not the killer.
With that said, I would recommend this film. I don’t think it is nearly as bad as a lot of people said. I think part of the negative view of the film is that is sequel and that it resembles the original too much. I came in knowing what the original is about and watching this as a film that is continuing Stone’s story, which I ended up enjoying. It brings up a little from the previous film while not violating what happened. I thought the acting was really good. I feel the editing of the film could have tightened up the product. The soundtrack didn’t stand out, while also not hurting the film. I would recommend this as a psychological thriller, but it can also be viewed as a fringe horror film. We have elements of a slasher as well as of a man descending into madness to prove his innocence. Not the best film in either of this types of films, but there are much worse out there as well.
My Rating: 6 out of 10