I read Henry Bean and Leora Barish‘s script of Basic Instinct 2 four or five years ago…and although it’s nicely-written hack job it’s still an empty programmer because it’s about absolutely nothing. Nothing, that is, except the task of mounting a sequel to a hit 1992 film. Sharon Stone was 33 when she made the original — she was 47 when the Michael Caton-Jones follow-up was filmed last year. And somehow the idea of Michael Douglas‘s San Francisco cop character (i.e., “Shooter”) having been ice-picked sometime after the close of the ’92 film and before the start of ’06 version…well, I didn’t like that. N.Y, Daily News columnists Rush & Molloy are reporting that “Sony execs have been going back and forth with the ratings mullahs over Stone’s various postures in Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction…we’re not sure what they thought of the early scene in which a man is pleasuring Sharon while she’s speeding along a cliffside road. But the MPAA did get hung up on some scorching orgy scenes. At first, it slapped an NC-17 on the flick. But after some snipping by director Michael Caton-Jones and editor John Scott, the ratings board deigned to give it an R.” I admire Stone for having shot steamy sex scenes at her age, and without a body double, but if a movie isn’t “about” anything that matters to you or me or Henry Bean then it’s crap, and crap is crap is crap…and it doesn’t matter how hot the dopey sex scenes are.