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by Ted Porter Published: April 4, 2006
Sharon Stone again takes up the role of novelist/psychopath Catherine Tramell, who surfaces this time in London. We're not told how long it's been since she left San Francisco or how things ended with Michael Douglas' character, detective Nick Curran, but it's obvious from the first scene that she's still up to her old tricks. (That, in fact, is part of the problem with this movie: they're old tricks.) When a famous footballer ends up dead after Catherine puts him on the losing end of her own version of Chappaquiddick, the femme fatale quickly finds herself being held and questioned by the police once again. With her ability to confound the cops intact, she's brought to psychiatrist Michael Glass (David Morrissey) for evaluation. As Dr. Glass talks with Catherine, there is of course an instant, primal attraction between the two of them. At least that's what it's supposed to be--but in place of any real chemistry what we feel is a whole lot of hot air, from both sides. Filled with dialogue that falls flat as it tries to seem sharp and provocative, the initial scenes between these two are such a blatant and failed attempt to recreate the palpable spark that existed between the Stone and Douglas characters in the first film that we can only laugh and, perhaps, think back longingly to Catherine's good old days in swinging San Francisco. Morrissey, while competent enough, has none of Douglas' dark undercurrent, which was what made the original pairing so right. We don't get the sense that his Dr. Glass, a sensible, respectable Englishman, really has the moral fragility that would make him succumb to temptation as he does. Whereas Douglas' Nick Curran exuded a reckless disregard for his own well-being, it's hard to believe that the controlled Glass, as Morrissey plays him, would throw caution to the wind to pursue an affair with someone he knows is dangerous. After being released on a technicality and finding her mark in the intrigued but naive Brit shrink, Catherine pulls out her slinkiest outfits and starts sharpening her claws as she prepares to screw with the good doctor's mind and, naturally, his body. Now, let it be said that Stone, plastic surgery or not, looks incredible for a woman nearing 50--hell, even for one nearing 40. But she's lost something in those intervening years that makes this Catherine seem so over the top and desperate to be shocking that we can't take her altogether seriously. She's merely doing a caricature of the very role that made her famous. Where Stone's earlier Catherine was almost casually evil--her lack of conscience and heartless sensuality lived comfortably in her bones, were a natural part of her--the older Catherine is trying too hard to be what she used to be, as if she's actually mellowed with age but wants to hide it from everyone, including herself. Part of this is the fault of the abysmal script (I can't believe I'm saying this, but: Joe Eszterhas, we need you!), which gives her some ridiculous lines that even Meryl Streep would find a challenge to make work. Stone was perfectly and deliciously chilling in the first film, a honed instrument of seduction and lethality. But here she's like a knife that's lost its edge, and no matter how much she grinds herself against the wheel--and grind she does--she'll never recover that magical gleam. To make matters worse, she doesn't even come off as especially sexy this time around. In the first film, Stone and the script endowed Catherine with a certain amount of irony and devilish humor that made her likable and almost put you on her side. We even got to see some moments of tenderness, feigned though some of them may have been. She seemed to enjoy the sex for its own sake, even when it was a means to an end. Here, though, Stone makes Catherine into a stone-cold bitch who's all business, even when she's having sex. The sex scenes themselves pale next to the original film's in terms of both nudity and sensuality. Those going to this movie hoping to at least get some more cheap thrills in that area are going to end up frustrated. The plot is similar to that of the first film, and it suffers for it. In an apparent attempt to pay homage to the original, the screenwriters try to hit many of the same notes and end up looking foolish when they miss. Scenes crop up that parallel ones in the original, but they don't have the same bite or sense of effortless sleaze, as if they've been neutered. The preferred killing method this time around has changed from ice pick to asphyxiation by leather belt--which could have had its own kinky implications but turns out instead to be rather boring from a cinematic point of view. Nothing gets across the brutal, messy aspects of sex and death like a long shaft able to penetrate a body and send its fluids flying. While Catherine plays with Dr. Glass, people around him start dying, and sure enough, it starts to look as if Glass could have killed them. As before, Catherine's current novel-in-progress, this time about a psychiatrist, mirrors what's happening in real life. The problem, which this film shares with the original, is that it's so obvious from the start who the real culprit is that we're not even left the pleasures of trying to solve a murder mystery. At least the original compensated for this by delivering on the carnal promise of its title. |
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