Ok, I know that many wouldn't agree with me, but I think that BASIC INSTINCT is one of the worst movies ever made in the last fifty years - especially since it reached a cult status and many, including a friend of mine, love it (!!!). It's one of the many depraved thrillers of the 1990s. Instead of good film making, Paul Verhoeven decided to write a corny and nasty thriller. It resulted in a wild assault on sensibility using many bad words, many violence and including lots and lots of sex scenes with Stone and Douglas. It's easy to say many bad words and put many sex scenes in a movie, but this ruined the movie, since the writing was absent and was, I think, written by a turtle. And the movie was supposed to be great? NO WAY IN HELL! Verhoeven's mantra was 'in doubt, let Michael Douglas exploding of anger and have sex with Sharon Stone like 5 times in the movie, yeah, 5 TIMES!!!''. Many praised Douglas and Stone's performance, but for me they were very broad and clownish, and mating all the time like crazed dolphins. (a big facepalm follows) There is no subtlety and nothing good in the movie.I think that this movie is adequate only to a stupid and sex-crazed audience that is used to have the brain damaged by these movies. Stay away from this movie like poison, you will be proud of following my advice! Even Harold P. Warren (the director of ''Manos the Hands of Fate'') could have made a better movie given the budget for this movie.

How did I get the impression this film is the most modern classic film I've seen? The unnecessary dramatic music, the choice of an old male with a young female, and the unrealistic depiction of a femme fatale. It looks like it was made for a different age.

I first came across Dutch director Paul Verhoeven when I saw Robocop in the late 1980s, and I found his sly, quietly satirical humour appealing. I didn't catch Basic Instinct when it first came out in the early 1990s, to all-round notoriety for 'that scene' and was generally panned by the critics, and the next Verhoeven film I caught was Black Book, which did not impress me much at all. I thought it was cheesy and derivative and ordinary. As for Starship Trooper and Total Recall, I haven't been there yet, but plan to in the next few days. But Black Book rather put me off Verhoeven.Last night I watched Basic Instinct and the admiration was back, though not just for the quiet, satirical humour, but for the man's utterly successful recreation of film noir. He has it off to a T: everything, from the convoluted plot, the snappy 'cool' dialogue', the incessant, urgent background score and, of course, the irresistible femme fatale who you just know is a total wrong 'un but, like the male lead, just can't help falling in love with. In addition, and more subtly, he has the camera perpetually moving, nothing is static, which makes for far more interesting shots, but which also adds to a certain intrigue.I caught the uncensored version which features rather a lot of sex. I gather the cinema release was rather more restrained and I have to say I don't think the film particularly gains from the extended sex scenes. Some might prefer more rather than less of Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone writhing this way and that, but to be frank I can take it or leave it. I'm not at all offended, but there is a suspicion it is all just a little gratuitous. But what the hell.The convoluted plot is, of course, entirely ludicrous and utterly implausible, and once you get a moment to reflect - though that moment is quite delayed by the enjoyment of Verhoeven's success in carrying it all off - it doesn't really bear scrutiny at all. But as is oddly the way with these films, Basic Instinct has somehow won you over - especially if you like, as I do, all those hard-bitten film noir - and you just think 'oh, what the hell'. 'Why would so-and-so go to all that trouble just to...?' - oh, what the hell. It's that kind of film.The critics didn't much like it and had it not had Michael Douglas as one of the leads, they all suggest would have been banished to B-movieland. But the fact is, it did (have Michael Douglas as a lead) and it wasn't.Especial mention must, though, go to Sharon Stone for her performance and, game lady that she so obviously is, 'that shot' (you know, the one which so excites adolescent boys). I also caught her in Scorsese's Casino in which her performance won here an Oscar, and I'm not at all surprised that she was honoured (she was nominated for her role here, but didn't win). There is in Basic Instinct - although not in Casino - an amused, detached quality to everything she does which is wholly appealing, but which doesn't undermine the film but add to it.So there you have it: if you like film noir - melodrama squared, snappy lines and all the rest - go for it. By me, at least, Basic Instinct comes highly recommended.PS Even the - equally ludicrous - final shot of the whole film which pretty much makes a nonsense of all that's gone before can't be faulted. As I say, one of Verhoeven's attractive qualities, for me at least, is his quiet and understated satire.

Everyone and the audience in Basic Instinct has seen a noir, or a Hitchcock. That is, except for our lead detective protagonist, who walks right into danger's arms and willingly embraces it. The first half and hour or so of the film is full of furious winking at the viewer. We have to play along with what seems like parody. Stone's reveal is with a knowing smirk on her face, as if she knows what everyone knows, that she will curl him around her fingers and get him to do whatever she wants. She might as well have a big, blinking sign floating above her head reading 'FEMME FATALE'. There is a bespectacled therapist ripped straight out of The Big Sleep, and who isn't fooling anyone; she immediately takes the glasses off, and is revealed to be another sexy conquest of Nick's after they air their dirty laundry out in the open. Catherine's massive inherited mansion seems to be eternally lit with shadowy rays of light bouncing off the pool - a perfect noir storm. She opens the door in revealing clothing and then proceeds to flaunt her naked body anyway in full sight of the detectives. No wait, that's not obvious enough. Later on she tells Nick a couple of key facts: one, she's not wearing any underwear, two, he'll pick up the drink and cigarette again, three, she's very good at lying, and four, she's going to kill him. Nick's partner, a bumbling, heavyset oaf, is oblivious to the searing sexual tension in the car. They're basically having sex from the first time they lay eyes on each other, and the dialogue is the foreplay. It's a wonder the actors can wrest with lines this heavy with a straight face. Every word is twisted, double edged, laced with the suggestion of "we're gonna bang". 'Sex' is actually only used seven times in the whole script, but with Verhoeven's penchant to linger on their sultry stares for a second or five too long, it seems like hundreds. Yet one could never accuse Verhoeven films of being straightforward - look to those who missed the point of Starship Troopers. This one's a little tricky. If you know Verhoeven you have to give him some benefit of the doubt. The first half of the film plays like a B-movie noir parody - not just once, but twice, Stone has an excuse to get out the ice pick and get stabby stabby. Haven't these people ever heard of an ice tray? The movie world is where a degree in psychology means you can pull a man's mind apart with ease - she knows Nick's whole history, his vices, his temptations. Beth, the actual shrink, sort of flails around helplessly. So Verhoeven shows that he knows the genre inside out, and that he's self aware. But the second half takes itself far too seriously. Having shown all its cards, it doesn't know how to conclude, so it just shoves the pair back under the covers. And after two hours of suggesting that there is more than meets the eye to this girl, it goes back on its word. Oh, she was serious when she announced out loud that she was going to kill him? I thought she was supposed to be the smart one.