If the concept of Denise Richards, naked but for a bra and schoolgirl mini-skirt ravaging a Gothicly made-up and chemically altered Neve Campbell is appealing to you, then you may find yourself in video heaven. This film is aimed so squarely at the young heterosexual male market that it's pitiful plea for respectability (tick off the Hitchcock references) must have been the only thing to prevent the producers from casting a less principled actress than Campbell and going straight for the top-shelf.
Wild Things is not misogynist per se, since the men are as guilty as the women. Indeed, every character is a fraud of some description and since Bill Murray's is the only one to admit as much, he is easily the most charming of a thoroughly abhorrent lot, most of whom get what they deserve. However, it is hard to imagine what possible appeal this could have to female audiences who don't find Matt Dillon's smug grin or Kevin Bacon's damp member enough to reduce them to dribbling lust.
There isn't so much a plot here as a series of excuses; for another illogical character-reversal, some pretty scenery or another shot of Richards scantily clad figure, who's cleavage the Director of Photography must have had burnt on to his retinas by the end of the shoot. In amongst it all there is a well-executed parody struggling to get out. The small-town California instincts are played up nicely with the community sub-dividing itself in to various factions who don't so much live together as co-habit. Theresa Russell has fun as Richards (naturally) sluttish mother who has slept her way around "Blue Bay" and still has a crush on Dillon's teacher-of-the-year. At the other end of the social strata, there is the inevitable "swamp trash" represented by Campbell and her family of in-bred crocodile trainers. The script is at pains to highlight the differences between these two lifestyles at first but soon gives up when the convoluted murder/black-mail/double-cross system gets in place.
In the end this emerges as a competent thriller, high on titillation, low on logic, and acted with general apathy. Executive producer Bacon is particularly tedious, especially when his presence starts to dominate the second half. What you are left wondering is why these people should have bothered in the first place. Granted Campbell is given the chance to show another side to her usual "vulnerable-innocence" persona, demonstrating "vulnerable-guilt" instead and Richards is presumably aware that an array of bikinis, pouts and lesbian clinches (champagne-splattered breasts inclusive) will hinder her career none and makes you wonder why she refused Verhoeven. Otherwise Bacon and Dillon seem merely to be waving to each other on downward trajectories, while director McNaughton has finally given in and admitted he is simply a peddler of forgettable trash.
Of course, none of this really matters a damn to those who will watch Wild Things, since it is not a bad evenings entertainment if you would rather not have to deal with anything too cerebral and are willing to forgive the dubious quasi-racism and ideological hypocrisy on offer. And unless you hoped to see Neve in the buff, chances are you'll get exactly what you paid for.
Wild Things is not misogynist per se, since the men are as guilty as the women. Indeed, every character is a fraud of some description and since Bill Murray's is the only one to admit as much, he is easily the most charming of a thoroughly abhorrent lot, most of whom get what they deserve. However, it is hard to imagine what possible appeal this could have to female audiences who don't find Matt Dillon's smug grin or Kevin Bacon's damp member enough to reduce them to dribbling lust.
There isn't so much a plot here as a series of excuses; for another illogical character-reversal, some pretty scenery or another shot of Richards scantily clad figure, who's cleavage the Director of Photography must have had burnt on to his retinas by the end of the shoot. In amongst it all there is a well-executed parody struggling to get out. The small-town California instincts are played up nicely with the community sub-dividing itself in to various factions who don't so much live together as co-habit. Theresa Russell has fun as Richards (naturally) sluttish mother who has slept her way around "Blue Bay" and still has a crush on Dillon's teacher-of-the-year. At the other end of the social strata, there is the inevitable "swamp trash" represented by Campbell and her family of in-bred crocodile trainers. The script is at pains to highlight the differences between these two lifestyles at first but soon gives up when the convoluted murder/black-mail/double-cross system gets in place.
In the end this emerges as a competent thriller, high on titillation, low on logic, and acted with general apathy. Executive producer Bacon is particularly tedious, especially when his presence starts to dominate the second half. What you are left wondering is why these people should have bothered in the first place. Granted Campbell is given the chance to show another side to her usual "vulnerable-innocence" persona, demonstrating "vulnerable-guilt" instead and Richards is presumably aware that an array of bikinis, pouts and lesbian clinches (champagne-splattered breasts inclusive) will hinder her career none and makes you wonder why she refused Verhoeven. Otherwise Bacon and Dillon seem merely to be waving to each other on downward trajectories, while director McNaughton has finally given in and admitted he is simply a peddler of forgettable trash.
Of course, none of this really matters a damn to those who will watch Wild Things, since it is not a bad evenings entertainment if you would rather not have to deal with anything too cerebral and are willing to forgive the dubious quasi-racism and ideological hypocrisy on offer. And unless you hoped to see Neve in the buff, chances are you'll get exactly what you paid for.