"Wild Orchid" is another in a series of movies whose reputation not only precedes it but exceeds it as well.
A follow-up of sorts to "9 1/2 Weeks," reuniting Mickey Rourke with that film's director and screenwriters, "Wild Orchid" has been touted as the "hot" erotic thriller of the moment.
Should we be surprised that it turns out to be lukewarm and without any thrills whatsoever?
What little story there is concerns internationally famous model Carre Otis as a naive innocent, a Midwestern lawyer who's never been anywhere but speaks several languages.
She's hired by a high-rolling New York law firm on her first day in the Big Apple and must leave the next day for Rio, along with brassy, foul-mouthed wheeler-dealer Jacqueline Bisset.
Bisset is closing some kind of
land/hotel deal and needs Otis for legal machinations and translating. But on their first day in Rio, Bisset discovers she must leave for a couple of days. So rather than cancel her date with mysterious multimillionaire Mickey Rourke, Bisset fixes Otis up with him.
Before she knows it, Otis is witnessing other couples having sex, posing as a prostitute for an American businessman and even cross-dressing with Bisset, who, it turns out, is hung up on Rourke but can't seem to get him to react.
This meager plotting is built around the closing of Bisset's major contract, but it's really just an excuse for a few explicit sex scenes with travelogue padding — to include the Carnival, of course.
What dialogue there is is ridiculously bad, and each of the three stars seem to be delivering it as if directed for three different movies. Rourke whispers his lines almost unintelligibly, Otis is stiff and without conviction while Bisset, whose character seems to be the only one with any personality at all, chews up the scenery. Clearly she is the only one having any fun.
Like "91/2 Weeks," "Wild Orchid" seems to be a non-stop music video, with lots of showy camera work, including offbeat angles, slow motion, snazzy lighting and a lot of slow movement with no dialogue, in everything from the sex scenes to the lengthy Carnival sequence.
Director Zalman King also likes to repeat snippets of the sex scenes now and again, no doubt for the benefit of audiences who arrive late.
Those who are aficionados of bad movies may find a few things to hoot at here, but most of the way it's simply dull.
"Wild Orchid" is rated R for considerable sex, nudity and profanity, with some violence. The initial X rating was for the film's final sex scene, when Rourke and Otis finally get together. Reportedly, that scene is tamed down for this version. But I wouldn't know. By the time that moment arrived, I was gone. Enough is enough, even for a critic.