The Big Question

The April 7th issue of Entertainment Weekly contains a short article by Missy Schwartz about Flight 93 that asks the question:

Does anyone want to see it?

I suppose, the same question could be asked of Basic Instinct 2 , which opens in theaters today. After all, it has been 14 years since audiences saw novelist Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) manipulate the man in her life, while causing mayhem with an ice pick. After such a long period between films, the critical reaction to the new film is pretty negative (that's putting it nicely).

Witness the review round-up for the film, as posted on today's Studio Briefing, via The Internet Movie Database:

...Manohla Dargis in the New York Times lands a few particularly heavy [stones at the film]. She writes that it is "no surprise that Basic Instinct 2 ... is a disaster of the highest or perhaps lowest order. It is also no surprise that this joyless calculation ... is such a prime object lesson in the degradation that can face Hollywood actresses, especially those over 40. Acting always involves a degree of self-abasement, but just watching trash like this is degrading." The actress Dargis refers to is Sharon Stone, whom several critics single out for a particularly heavy bashing. For example, Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer calls her performance "quite terrible," then goes on: "Stone is betting that a 48-year-old woman can be as hot and dangerous as the 20-somethings the film industry is addicted to. Bully for her -- in theory. In practice, Stone appears to have had so much work done that her face resembles a tautly made bed, and her unchanging expression of smoldering arrogance seems less an acting decision and more the result of neurotoxins. The body may be willing but the flesh has been immobilized." Kyle Smith in the New York Post describes the movie as "Botoxic" (under a headline reading "Necromancing the Stone"), and concludes: "There are inflatable toys that are livelier than Stone, but how can you tell the difference? Basic Instinct 2 is not an erotic thriller. It's taxidermy." And Carina Chocana in the Los Angeles Times concludes her review of the movie this way: "Dead serious and stone idiotic, the only basic instinct in evidence here is desperation."

Ouch!

Given all of those negatives...You can imagine my surprise to find that EW film critic Owen Glieberman (a tough guy to please IMHO) gave the sequel a passing grade of B- in his review of the film.

Hmmm?