Basic is the word

Former footballer Stan Collymore, here playing a current footballer, gets done in within the first five minutes of this sequel. He's the lucky one.

Poor David Morrissey as Michael Glass, the prim psychiatrist who falls for Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), the world's No 1 vamp. He survives the duration of the movie in a part he looks almost embarrassed to play.

I can quite see why. Basic is the exact word for this silly farrago, which takes the bones of the first film, rattles them and produces a skeleton with not much flesh or blood. It only goes to prove that the eight years or so of shillyshallying development hell has done absolutely nothing for either veracity or entertainment value.

Michael Caton-Jones, the umpteenth choice as director, whose infinitely superior Shooting Dogs is also released this week, seems content to give us a smart, flashy view of London, possibly in the hope of obliterating some of the worst forays of the tuppence-coloured screenplay.

Admittedly Stone looks a treat and acts with the kind of onedimensional professionalism that the part requires. But she's part of the tasty scenery rather than a likely crime writer.

This is film-making by numbers, incapable of the slightest imagination and acted out by a cast who grit their teeth and get on with it. You can't believe in it for a moment.

Basic Instinct 2
Cert: 18