When a sequel's incubation takes 14 years, the result cannot exactly be said to have come about "by popular demand." In the case of "Basic Instinct 2," that leisurely gestation period seems particularly problematic for Sharon Stone, star of the original sex thriller about a cop's attraction to a brazenly seductive murder suspect.

	Jaap Buitendijk David Morrissey falls under Sharon Stone's spell in "Basic Instinct 2." Click photo for larger image. 'Basic Instinct 2' Rating: R for nudity, sexual themes, violence and language. Starring: Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling. Director: Michael Caton-Jones. "Basic Instinct 2" Web site

The first "Instinct's" enduring success stemmed less from Stone's dramatic skill than from er erotic displays in a series of eye-popping couplings that were so explicit they nearly produced an X rating. That was in 1992.

In 2006, the femme fatale is a bit long in the tooth.

Stone reprises naughty novelist Catherine Tramell, transplanted from San Francisco to London but still infamous for horny, homicidal high jinks. In the spectacular opening of "B.I.2," she's at the wheel of a speeding sports car while being aroused by a hunky-drunky soccer star in the passenger seat. Catherine and the scene reach a climax when the car plunges through a bridge railing into the Thames. Aided by her anatomical flotation devices, she rises while he sinks.

It's an exciting sequence. But don't get your hopes up. Nothing ever tops it. Thenceforth, the focus shifts to Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey), a psychiatrist tapped to evaluate her for the inquest. Boy, does he evaluate her. And boy, is he dull -- even compared with Michael Douglas in "B.I.1."

The doctor is totally flummoxed by her seductions. Scotland Yard is flummoxed by a new string of S&M sex-murders (including that of the shrink's wife) and by the seriously inappropriate outfits Catherine wears during her interrogations about them. I, for my part, am flummoxed by a failure to understand her whispery, unintelligible dialogue or the plot.

Anyway, having determined that she has a "risk addiction" to sex and violence, Dr. Glass is shattered to find himself a suspect and becomes even more wooden and stolid. Psychiatric psychopath? Maybe, maybe not. But he should have been given antidepressants instead of nude scenes to liven up himself as well as the movie.

Morrissey has what one wag calls charisn'tma. My much-adored Charlotte Rampling, on the other hand, has charisma, but it is squandered in a dumb role as Glass' fellow-shrink confidante. Michael Caton-Jones' direction of this "Basic Instinct" basically stinks. It's sad because he is a gifted filmmaker, whose recent "Shooting Dogs" about Rwanda is an incredibly moving, important film.

But you can't make a silk-screen gem out of a sow's script, with or without Sharon. That leggy leading lady is still certifiably attractive at 48, but all the smirking, leering and come-hithering make her less of an eye-popping than just an eye-rolling Stone.