The Bottom Line: Stone Cold Sharon Gets Back to ‘Basic’s

Sharon Stone seduced Hollywood with her sexual boldness.

Fourteen years later, she’s trying to win back the affectations of a disinterested Tinseltown by again stripping down to the bare essentials.

Basic Instinct, Paul Verhoeven’s Hitchcockian orgy of sex and violence, transformed the relatively unknown Stone into a blonde bombshell even the most respected of directors wanted to get their hands on. And she received countless opportunities to prove herself, but she failed to do so each and everytime–with or without her clothes on. True, she scored a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Martin Scorsese’s Casino. But revealing all in Basic Instinct certainly left a panting public well and truly satisfied.

Now, at 48, Stone’s trying to turn heads again with Basic Instinct 2.

A steamy sneak peak of the Michael Douglas-less sequel, now playing on a computer near you, finds Stone resplendent in her birthday suit as she frolics with a bevy of beautiful creatures.

But these scenes were slashed from Basic Instinct 2 to secure an R rating. And this belated–and unwarranted–sequel is nothing but a bloody bore, not a sexy romp. Regardless, this is the Stone we remember from Basic Instinct, Sliver and The Specialist, long before she craved respectability with  Casino, Last Dance and The Mighty.

Even after the flops Diabolique, Gloria and Sphere, Stone reportedly received $15 million in 2000 to return as icepick-wielding psychopath Catherine Tramell. But everything fell apart when the producers failed to snare a willing bedmate, despite approaching everyone from Pierce Brosnan and Kurt Russell to Benjamin Bratt and Bruce Greenwood. In 2001, the threat of an actors strike prevented cameras from rolling, resulting in Stone suing for alleged breach of contract.

Three years later, Stone dropped her lawsuit and Basic Instinct 2 was back on. And she finally landed her male lead in David Morrissey, best known in the United States–if at all–for almost succumbing to Jennifer Aniston’s wily ways in Derailed.

So will Basic Instinct 2–which Sony appears to be dumping in just 1,400-plus theaters–be worth all this trouble to Stone?

Yes–to an extent. She’s never going to receive another paycheck this big. Hit or miss, she’s unlikely to carry another $70 million film on her own back after enduring recent flops as Catwoman, Cold Creek Manor and the direct-to-DVD A Different Loyalty. And Basic Instinct 2 finally gives us a film to talk about–which we’ve not done since 1995’s Casino–after years of merely debating her very public private life. 

Sure, there’s the potential that this sequel turned out to be a complete embarrassment, à la Sliver, considering Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas aren’t around to ensure this could be anything like the guilty pleasure that was Basic Instinct. It’s not, but its estimated weekend opening of $3.2 million is.

But Stone’s survived worse. And her recent decision to lend her presence to ensemble-driven independents films–as evidenced by Broken Flowers–should serve her well. Luckily, expectations are high for Nick Cassavetes’ fact-based crime saga Alpha Dog (May 12) and Bobby (TBA), Emilio Estevez’s account of the night of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. Both films could help Stone’s partially earn back the respect she received and swiftly lost after Casino.

The Bottom Line
The prospect of Stone playing cat-and-games isn’t as tantalizing without Douglas’ participations. And notoriety alone did not enable Basic Instinct 2 to match its predecessor’s $15.1 million opening, resulting in this sequel meeting a quicker death than one of Catherine Tramell’s lovers.