Basic Instinct 2 (Unrated Extended Cut)
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

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Seductive danger freak Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) is still up to her tricks, only now it's in London instead of San Francisco. When the story begins, the expatriate erotic crime author careens through downtown at 110 mph while a groggy footballer in the passenger seat gives her an explosive finger-banging. But Catherine loses control and pulls a Chappaquiddick, plunging her Spyker C8 Laviolette into the Thames and leaving her dexterous lover behind to drown. In the aftermath, when Scotland Yard reviews her suspicious track record, her court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Glass (David Morrissey) diagnoses her with a severe case of "risk addiction." But before you can say "ice pick" Catherine charms the knickers off her proper shrink, plunging him into her world of dangerous sexuality and deadly mind-fucks.

After the memorable interrogation in Paul Verhoeven's 1992 Basic Instinct, BI2 has much to live up to, and much to live down. And it delivers, pairing a top-shelf cast with a humorously self-aware twist. Award-winning thespians David Thewlis (as the lead investigator) and Charlotte Rampling (as a fellow psychiatrist) give this new film the artistic pedigree of the former. But while new director Michael Caton-Jones preserves the unapologetically raw power-play carnality of the original, he combines it with the titillating excess of Verhoeven's follow-up, Showgirls, featuring such therapeutic dialogue gems as, "I'm traumatized. Who knows if I'll ever come again." Designed around Stone's throaty diction and remarkable physical assets, Basic Instinct 2 is this year's ultimate bad-girl flick in more ways than one.

Cast and crew give on-the-set interviews in the bonus "making of" featurette called "Between the Sheets." But the best part is that we get to witness the film unit crash the sports car into the Thames then see Sharon Stone and ill-fated soccer player Stan Collymores's harrowing escape in a high-tech tank on a Pinewood soundstage. In his thick Scottish accent, director Michael Caton-Jones provides optional audio commentary articulating how he crafted a commercial film with a European sensibility. Yet he still gives the audience what they want by maintaining the "campy knowingness" of the first Basic Instinct. Of the 10 deleted scenes included, the highlight is one between Stone and Rampling that Caton-Jones calls the "Dynasty" scene, in which Stone, hair slicked back and wearing a patchy fur, looks like Orlando Bloom in The Lord of the Rings. What's listed as the alternative ending on this disk is kind of a stretch. Call it an alternative take on the ending that makes the resolution less ambiguous. The disk doesn't highlight what scenes have been added or prolonged in this unrated extended cut. Suffice it to say, there's ample full nudity, doggy-style hair pulling and erotic asphyxiation in this version to make the MPAA censors blush.

by Tim Lovejoy