Basic Instinct 1992

Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune: Verhoeven does not explore the dark side, but merely exploits it, and that makes all the difference in the world. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Basic Instinct is a reminder of the difference between exhilaration and exhaustion, between tension and hysteria, between eroticism and exhibitionism. The line may be fine, but it is real enough to separate the great thrillers from the also-rans. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: The harsh, politically incorrect truth about Basic Instinct is that it's a tantalizing, suspensefully correct thriller. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Call me a prude, but it's not sexy watching an erotic thriller in which every time a couple does it, one of them gets it with an ice pick. I don't care how many firmly toned tummies and tushes are bared. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Slick, clever and entertainingly overheated while you're watching it, Basic Instinct starts to evaporate the second you leave the theater. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: Basic Instinct transfers Mr. Verhoeven's flair for action-oriented material to the realm of Hitchcockian intrigue, and the results are viscerally effective even when they don't make sense. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Despite (or maybe because of) his obligatory nods to Hitchcock, this is slick and entertaining enough to work as thriller porn, even with two contradictory denouements to its mystery. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Sharon Stone, in her first major-league role, comes on like a postfeminist Grace Kelly. She turns her haughty, slightly blank, cheerleader sexiness into something vampish and ominous -- an all-American beauty mask. Read more

Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker: A vicious, grindingly manipulative urban mystery that uses a thick atmosphere of S&M kinkiness to distract the audience from the story's thinness and inanity. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The film's problems begin with its story, which is constructed with relentless manipulation in mind. It never plays fair with the audience. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film is like a crossword puzzle. It keeps your interest until you solve it. Then it's just a worthless scrap with the spaces filled in. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: [The film has] a smug faith in the ability of its own speed, smartness and luxe to wow the yokels. Read more

Stephen Garrett, Time Out: Douglas and Stone are superb, and George Dzundza (as sidekick Gus) delivers another classic hard-boiled cameo. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: This erotically charged thriller about the search for an ice-pick murderer in San Francisco rivets attention through its sleek style, attractive cast doing and thinking kinky things, and story, which is as weirdly implausible as it is intensely visceral. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: A predictable, surprisingly uninvolving affair. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: These actors seem driven less by real emotions than Eveready bunny batteries. Read more