Catherine Tramell is back! This time the sex-crazed killer is implicated in her footballer husband's death. A staid British psychiatrist is brought in to unravel her secrets, but he soon begins to fall under her spell.

Apparently Sharon Stone waited years for the right script for a "Basic Instinct" follow-up. Obviously, she or her bank manager got tired of waiting and went for this pile of toss. If this was the best available, I'd hate to see the reject pile. I am amazed it took two people to write. Leora Barish and Henry Bean should be ashamed of themselves. In an attempt to shock the public, the dialogue is suffused with expletives and sex is routinely referred to as f***ing. The writers seem to think that a sexually predatory older woman using these terms is sexy; talking about sex in this way so often is merely tawdry. And it is done so often and at the most inappropriate times that it simply becomes funny. When Catherine delivers the immortal line "What would you say if I told you I think about you when I masturbate?" you'd be inclined to reply "I think that's highly improbable." The characters are so two-dimensional they don't even have personalities. Catherine is a clear-cut nymphomaniac murderess and Dr Glass is a dull as ditch-water non-entity. However, the worst offender is a stereotypical Teutonic shrink, who is so OTT it feels like he's been shipped in from "Young Frankenstein".

Sharon Stone used to be considered something of a sex bomb; strong and intelligent but not afraid of her sexuality. However, her second outing as Catherine Tramell may well put paid to that. She's gone from being sharp to hard, confident to smug, beautiful to over made-up and a decent actress to a terrible one. All of her emotions are entirely unconvincing. She substitutes jaw-clenching, staring and squinting for real feelings. She has zero chemistry with her male co-stars and totally overplays her hand. So instead of being sexy, she puts in the kind of nudge-nudge, wink-wink performance that would have embarrassed Sid James. Getting your baps out for the lads doesn't mean you're sexually alluring.

It's a shame the costume budget didn't extend to buying underwear for Miss Stone. Her nipples get more exposure than a naked Eskimo. But I suppose all the money went on a series of ludicrous outfits that do nothing to make Sharon Stone look classy. It's all trashy lycra slit up the thigh and down the back. The skin-tight nature merely makes it look as though she bought everything two sizes too small. All of the outfits seem to be about collar and cuffs. She spends most of the film looking like she's going to a vicars and tarts party. There's even the horror of the word that hates women; cat-suit. Did she learn nothing from "Catwoman"? Then there's her propensity for wearing fur; proof that though it may take twenty dumb bitches to make a fur wrap, it only takes one to wear it.

The score by John Murphy suffers similar delusions of grandeur to the rest of the movie. It is more epic in scope than anything else in the film, seeming to think it belongs to a hard-edged political thriller that requires brooding strings and big orchestral brass to get its message across. It's sub-Bond in its use of echoing chimes and sinister strings and flutes. It might actually be good if it wasn't attached to such an abysmal movie.