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Practical Magic 2 Struggles to Break the Hollywood Sequel Curse
Confirmed
In Short: Practical Magic 2, a sequel to the 1998 film, fails to live up to its predecessor, according to critics.
Nearly three decades after "Practical Magic" turned a critical and commercial flop into a durable cable-era comfort movie, "Practical Magic 2" trades heavily on fond memories. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman return as Sally and Gillian Owens, with Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing reprising their roles as the idiosyncratic aunts. The film is stocked with the expected ingredients: witchy domesticity, family curses, romantic peril, midnight rituals, and the promise that familial love is the most potent magic of all.
However, the sequel's nostalgia may just as easily sour a remembered affection for the first film, revealing how little dramatic life the new story has beyond its callbacks. "Practical Magic 2," directed by Susanne Bier and adapted from Alice Hoffman's novel The Book of Magic, mistakes that cult affection for a formula, reciting an incantation from a recipe card rather than making anything new from the ingredients. The greatest problem is that the film seems to believe that "simply more" is a form of enchantment: more family history, more curses, more romantic complications, more magical rules, and more overlapping quests.
Before we get to the present-day action, there's a brutal reveal: Gary, Sally's second husband, was claimed by the curse that has killed the men loved by Owens women for centuries. As a result, Sally decided to take extreme measures to protect her two daughters, Kiley and Antonia, in the future. She magically erased their memories of magic and stopped using it herself. This sets the stage for Kiley's journey to England in search of a solution that could save Gideon, guided by an ancient book filled with potentially dark magic.
The film ensures that Practical Magic 2 begins on a sour note, one that makes the movie’s subsequent attempts at lighter beats feel jarring. Critics at Consequence of Sound note that the core original cast returns, but the weak script filled with awkward moments undermines the potential of the story. The sequel's attempts to build on the legacy of the first film fall flat, with the narrative feeling muddled and the characters' motivations unclear.
What's confirmed
- Nearly three decades after "Practical Magic" turned a critical and commercial flop into a durable cable-era comfort movie, "Practical Magic 2" trades heavily on fond memories. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman return as Sally and Gillian Owens, with Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing reprising their roles as the idiosyncratic aunts. The film is stocked with the expected ingredients: witchy domesticity, family curses, romantic peril, midnight rituals, and the promise that familial love is the most potent magic of all.
- However, the sequel's nostalgia may just as easily sour a remembered affection for the first film, revealing how little dramatic life the new story has beyond its callbacks. "Practical Magic 2," directed by Susanne Bier and adapted from Alice Hoffman's novel The Book of Magic, mistakes that cult affection for a formula, reciting an incantation from a recipe card rather than making anything new from the ingredients. The greatest problem is that the film seems to believe that "simply more" is a form of enchantment: more family history, more curses, more romantic complications, more magical rules, and more overlapping quests.
- Before we get to the present-day action, there's a brutal reveal: Gary, Sally's second husband, was claimed by the curse that has killed the men loved by Owens women for centuries. As a result, Sally decided to take extreme measures to protect her two daughters, Kiley and Antonia, in the future. She magically erased their memories of magic and stopped using it herself. This sets the stage for Kiley's journey to England in search of a solution that could save Gideon, guided by an ancient book filled with potentially dark magic.
- The film ensures that Practical Magic 2 begins on a sour note, one that makes the movie’s subsequent attempts at lighter beats feel jarring. Critics at Consequence of Sound note that the core original cast returns, but the weak script filled with awkward moments undermines the potential of the story. The sequel's attempts to build on the legacy of the first film fall flat, with the narrative feeling muddled and the characters' motivations unclear.
What's still developing
- Onscreen, the secrecy mostly registers as contrivance - Kylie falls directly into the curse's path because she was never told what it is or how to avoid it - and the compression does not allow enough time to make her mother's protectiveness feel like anything but a plot device.
- I didn't see Practical Magic when it opened in theaters back in 1998.
- Catching up with Practical Magic myself a couple of years ago, I was charmed by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman 's winsome chemistry and by the film's arresting stew of genres, from romantic comedy to domestic-abuse melodrama to undead horror.