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Sharon Stone's ultimate femme fatale, Catherine Tramell, returns in this delightfully trashy film 14 years after the original and that interrogation scene. Michael Caton-Jones lets Stone go and earn her $14 million payday without having any of Verhoeven's vision or artistic flair which made the first such a watchable and intriguing joy for a modern film noir. David Morrissey's London-based psychiatrist isn't a patch on Michael Douglas's San Francisco police detective as he fails to blossom any chemistry between himself and the main event, Miss Stone. Stan Collymore even makes a laughable cameo in the opening credits, which will have you in absolute stitches, somehow unsurprisingly diverting your attention from Caton-Jones' poor attempt at stylish yet trashy. Seeing a decent Premiership striker (in his day) with his off-the-pitch reputation sensationalised by the tabloids, involved in a scene with one of the major sex symbols of the 1990s, oozed hilarity. From that first scene, the film never recovers, and that appetizer isn't even supposed to be so entertaining! Shazza is obviously looking amazingly good at 47 and Morrissey doesn't exactly perform at a Mariah Carey level of acting, but the film does nothing to push the "watch me again" factor or the latter's career. A comment or two on the plot would normally satisfy a reviewer's criteria, but after a while writing bad things about the same film becomes tiresome, and to be fair to Caton-Jones et al, enough attention wasn't paid. It definitely wasn't engaging enough though and the dish served was seemingly a reworking of exactly what happened in the much more superior Basic Instinct with just a change of location and characters. The final scenes at Royal Holloway, University of London, were very welcome, but overall, this coupled with the gorgeous Sharon Stone trying her hardest to salvage something from nothing were the only highlights.
The extras
For an "uncut" edition it stupidly doesn't have all of the segments that were missed out in the deleted scenes section, just a boring select few, with the remaining exclusions available on obscure websites. Nothing else to write home about, but decent enough extras for a value disc with the commentary etc.
The summary
Buy and watch the 1992 original for a very engaging erotic thriller full of mystery, a great performance from Michael Douglas and a gorgeous Sharon Stone. Watch this for a gorgeous Sharon Stone and trust me, nothing more, except a mediocre English actor destroying his career.
