Basic Instinct (C-) is a self-consciously shocking thriller from Robocop director Paul Verhoeven. Its highlight is a fresh, fierce performance from Sharon Stone as a cunning ice pick wielding femme fatale with a penchant for being panty-less and being oddly nonchalant about homicide. Both her creaky co-star Michael Douglas and Joe Eszterhas’s lumpy screenplay (“She’s evil…and brilliant!”) are no match for Stone’s one-woman show. Underdeveloped plot and characters leave the high-gloss affair oddly un-erotic and un-involving despite some undeniably guilty pleasure moments.