Basic Instinct 2 - Victim of McCarthyism and Conservative Ban

"Basic Instinct 2" is by all accounts an atrocious movie.  It debuted at #10 this weekend, scrounging up a paltry $3.2 million.  On the Internet Movie Database, it scored a 2.7/10 based on user reviews (making it the 59th lowest rated movie of all time).  Rotten Tomatoes.com, an aggregator of movie critics' reviews, gives it a rating of "6% fresh" (only 7 out of the 108 posted reviews were positive).

But this nearly universal thumbs down has a simple explanation, if you buy the reasoning of the director of the original. (Hat tip: Alert reader Chris in Indiana.)

Paul Verhoeven, director of the first "Basic Instinct" (which scored $353 million worldwide) as well as the widely ridiculed "Showgirls" (now regarded as something of a camp classic), attributes the genre's demise to the current American political climate.

"Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," said the Dutch native. "Look at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."

Darn that George Bush.  He killed the otherwise thriving Basic Instinct franchise!

Other purveyors of the genre agree.

Scribe Nicholas Meyer, who was an uncredited writer on 1987's seminal sex-fueled cautionary tale "Fatal Attraction," agrees, noting that the genre's downfall coincides with the ascent of the conservative political movement.

"We're in a big puritanical mode," he said. "Now, it's like the McCarthy era, except it's not 'Are you a communist?' but 'Have you ever put sex in a movie?'"

Never mind that Sharon Stone, the sultry female lead, has matured from 34 to 48 between the two installments, without many bright spots in her interim career to bolster her box office appeal.  Never mind that the original also included A-list actors Michael Douglas (at the peak of his career) and Jeanne Tripplehorn (not to mention Newman).  And whatever you do, don't consider the fact that sex-themed movies did just fine last year.

• Wedding Crashers - $283 million worldwide (budget $40 million)
• The 40 Year Old Virgin - $177 million worldwide (budget: $26 million)
• Brokeback Mountain - $166 million worldwide (budget $14 million), plus 3 Oscars
• March of the Penguins - $120 million worldwide, plus 1 oscar ;)

Isn't it just possible that the critics, moviegoers, and common sense have this one right - that this movie is simply an unmitigated catastrophe of wasted celluloid?  I guess when you combine the two strongest forces among Hollywood liberals - boundless self-love and blind Bush hatred - there's just no hope of conceding the truth.

Note to Stone:  I guarantee if you make Basic Instinct 3 and a) put on 50 pounds, b) disfigure yourself, or c) incorporate a significant mental or societal handicap into the character, you'll win the Oscar.

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