In the first second of "Basic Instinct 2," the camera finds novelist Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) roaring about 150 mph down the staid London streets; she's ratcheting through the sports car's gears while her date, a British footballer, ratchets through her gears. These two kinds of play don't mix, and before you can say gesundheit, the car is sinking into the Thames, Catherine has gotten free and poor jock-boy is about to get neighborly with Davy Jones.

This death -- accident or murder? -- tees off Scotland Yard in the form of Detective Washburn (David Thewlis), who is determined to get her. He requests a psychotherapist to interview and diagnose her to keep her in the slammer, which is what brings a forlorn David Morrissey into the picture as Michael Glass. He declares her risk-addictive and God-confused (she thinks she's Her). Lock her up and throw away the key! is his suggestion.

What he doesn't count on is the degree to which his diagnosis titillates her. When she's sprung on bail, she makes him her business, and business is good. The gist of the movie is watching her insinuate herself into his life, first as patient, then as friend of friends, then as lover, finally as antagonist. Meanwhile, people around him are suddenly dying.

Where is the suspense part? There is no suspense part. Suspense demands clarity of motive and action, and this screenplay never provides it. It's left to the director, Michael Caton-Jones, to heat up the atmospherics with dark photography that punches up the lurid evil of London's most sordid streets.

Poor Morrissey is so overmatched by Stone that he hardly registers with anyone except the screenwriters, who insist on keeping the attention on him.

And is Stone acting or is she simply putting on these ignorant Brits who clearly don't get her? It's hard to say, but the role as written is pure kitsch and so she amps it up toward the sky. It's not so much a performance as a vampy model's runway strut-and-pirouette for some fly-by-night lingerie designer Vogue never covers.

-- Stephen Hunter

Contains extreme violence, sexual innuendo and (complete) nudity.